Witch Killers
by BolteAltamont
Summary: Follow the lives of members of the Auror Office, Homicide Division, as they track down the various vile and vicious serial killers and psychopaths of the wizarding world. Set in current times. Kindly read and review.
1. Muggle Evidence

The woman's head fell to the floor with a plunk, having been severed from its shoulders at the neck. It rolled a few times across the floor and came to a stop at the feet of Howard Kruse, who turned a little green at the sight of it. He said, "Erm, Kenzie..."

"Oh! Sorry about that." Kenzie Birch flicked her wand, and the head flew back in her direction. She caught it like a Quaffle and held the head in place against the neck to which it had once been connected. When she let go, it stayed there, held together by some invisible force, the same force that was currently supporting the woman's dismembered arms and legs.

"Carol Blumstein, forty-three," said Tobias Klavan, the man with frizzled white hair standing just behind Kenzie's shoulder. "Heads up."

A pair of slick green gloves materialised around Tobias's hands. He rubbed them against each other, and purple sparks erupted from his fingertips, each one tracing a parabolic arc through the air before landing on the corpse's skin.

"What's happening, exactly?" Freda Messings asked from Howard's left, sporting an expression of confusion that he thought rather matched his own level of comprehension. Howard shook his head at his fellow Auror before attempting to focus his gaze upon the gloves and not the body just below them.

It hardly deserved to be called a body. Even beyond the detached appendages, the entire figure looked as if a giant had decided to use it as a chair. The back of the woman's head was sunken in; she had been stripped bare, and her ribs jutted out of her sides. Her chest was a bloody pit, littered with flecks of crushed bone.

She was the third that they had found of her kind, smushed to a pulp. The _Prophet_ had dubbed the person behind these murders the Skull Smasher; Howard thought that such a melodramatic moniker hardly captured the monstrosity before him, currently being pelted by sparks flying from magical gloves.

"Chocolate?" Kenzie said, holding up a brown frog.

"No thanks," Howard said hurriedly, remembering the head that had been in the frog's place mere moments before. Freda accepted the frog graciously.

"So what have you got for us, Toby?" Freda asked, after she'd bitten a chunk out of the frog's side.

"Working on it," Tobias said.

"The others were just crushed. They weren't decapitated or dismembered," Howard recalled. "That's new, right? The killer's evolving."

"That's not good," Freda said with a scowl.

"But, hey, look at the bright side!" Kenzie said, pointing at the gap in the corpse's neck. "More stuff to look at, more clues to find! See how jagged these cuts are, curving this way and that? That's a clear sign that it wasn't made directly with magic."

"I see," Howard said, trying to look anywhere except where Kenzie was pointing. "It's like tearing a piece of parchment in half with your hands instead of using scissors—er, using a Severing Charm," he quickly corrected himself upon being met with blank stares.

"Precisely," Tobias said as he removed his gloves, looking satisfied. "There were no enchantments used to snap the victim's bones—not directly, at least."

"Not directly?" Freda repeated.

"We would not, for example, be able to detect if the killer had Transfigured his hands into metal claws with which he had then proceeded to pull off parts of the victim's body," Tobias explained. "I have merely ascertained that it was not the case that our killer sliced off the victim's head with a single curse. We should, in fact, be able to mend her body as we have done for the others, for her family's sake."

"Well, her family's going to have to wait a while," Freda said. "Keep at it, you two, and keep us posted on what you find. We'll check with Nellie and Tristan to see if they found anything on the scene."

As Freda turned to leave, an uneasy thought occurred to Howard. "Erm, Kenzie—was the victim decapitated before or after she was crushed?"

"Before," Kenzie answered immediately. "First it was the limbs, then the head, then the crushing. Decapitation was the cause of death."

Howard winced at the notion. "Right. Yeah—thanks, Kenzie, Tobias. Great work."

* * *

A single second.

One damn second was all it had taken for the body to have vanished under Scarlett's nose.

She'd heard them coming and had slipped within a side closet in the nick of time. Now she watched them through a crack between the closet doors.

They were a man and a woman. Both looked vaguely familiar - from previous cases, no doubt, Scarlett figured. The woman waved her wand and made the body disappear; fortunately, Scarlett had managed to snap a picture of it before the pair of them had arrived. Unfortunately, she hadn't managed to do much else.

The closet was too far away from where the two were standing for Scarlett to hear the words that were being exchanged between them, but she could read lips just well enough to tell that the woman was saying either "there has to" or "the last two." This little ambiguity was soon resolved, as the next word was unmistakably "victims."

So this was the work of a serial killer. To Scarlett, this was hardly a surprise. Judging by the state of the body, whoever had killed that poor woman must have been batshit crazy.

The closet was kind of chilly; Scarlett sat on the floor and held her knees against her chest to stay warm. As she did so, she glanced down at the photograph she'd taken—the centrepiece, a torso, covered in nothing but clumps of blood and a fine layer of dust; below it, two legs, lazily strewn in the shape of a cross, their knees bent awkwardly in opposite directions; on the right, both arms, each still connected to a sizeable chunk of shoulder; on the left, a head that could almost be screaming if it weren't quite, quite dead.

 _Ewww_ , thought Scarlett, wondering how she was supposed to satisfy her client's request for pictures. She'd probably have to just zoom in on the head and crop out everything else.

Still, there was something about the photograph that made it difficult for Scarlett to look away. It reminded her of another body, one that Scarlett had discovered some time ago…

* * *

The violet folders shuffled over one another, each one opening and closing in turn before filing itself away.

"That one."

The folders froze. Then, one by one, they slid themselves into the open filing cabinet until the single open folder remained.

On the left side of the folder were two photographs. The top one displayed a handsome young man, grinning and waving at the camera, his hair billowing in the wind.

The bottom photograph was much less handsome. It showed a man, lying on the ground, his body a mangled, bloody mess, his head and limbs severed from his torso. Howard would not have recognised him as the man in the photograph above if not for the captions below each picture.

"This was a case from five years ago," said Nellie Henderson, the woman who had just spoken. "Mark and I worked the case together."

Mark Peterson was an Auror who had retired a year prior; Howard had essentially taken his position in the Auror Office's Homicide Division. Although Howard had never met the man, from the way the others spoke of the former Auror, Howard could tell Peterson had been very good at his job.

"The victim's name was Eddie Elms, husband of Francine Elms. He cheated on her, so her brother Christoph Platt offed him."

"But it says you never made an arrest," Freda said, pointing at the dense font on the folder's right side.

"Oh, it was definitely the brother," Nellie said dismissively. "Still, he managed to get a bunch of his mates to swear he was with him on the night of the murder. We had no choice but to let him go."

"But," Freda said, still frowning, "how did you know for sure—"

"Muggle evidence," said a brusque male voice. Howard turned to find Tristan Griffith standing nearby, his hands stuffed inside the pockets of his robes, his expression grim. "Inadmissible. Kruse, what do you call those ribbons on wheels you write voices on—?"

"Erm—tape recorders?" Howard offered.

"Yes, we were sent one of those anonymously," Nellie explained, "with Platt's confession on it. It didn't sound like he was coerced, either, more like he'd let it slip. But since it was a Muggle device, the Wizengamot would never have allowed it in court."

"Think he had something to do with the case?" Tristan asked.

"Wouldn't be surprised," Nellie said. "He was vicious. Fully capable of dismembering someone with his bare hands, as you see before you."

"Sounds more like your everyday street thug than a psychotic serial killer, though," Freda pointed out.

"Yeah, but we might not be looking for a textbook serial killer," Howard said.

Tristan cocked his head to the side, studying Howard intently. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, highly disciplined serial killers don't usually change their killing methods completely, do they?" Howard said, thinking back to Kenzie's report. "I mean, they might add stuff here and there, but going from crushing to decapitation is a pretty big jump. It might have made sense if the body was dismembered afterwards to dispose of the body, but as the actual cause of death? It seems a little odd."

"But a bloke like Platt couldn't care less about the difference," Nellie said, nodding.

"Sounds like a lead," Tristan said.

"That's his address," said Nellie, pointing to a line on the folder. "I'll drop by his place and see how he's doing. Freda, put an Anti-Disapparition Jinx over the area as soon as we leave in case he starts running. Howard, will you come with me?"

Nellie had seniority and was thus the unofficial leader amongst the Aurors in the Homicide Division, which was why Howard immediately agreed. He took her arm and they Disapparated with a pop.

* * *

The yellowing wooden door gave a gut-wrenching creak as it swung open. A large, hulking man with a scraggly beard and wide, bloodshot eyes stood in the doorway, glaring down at his visitor. "Who are you?"

"Auror," said Scarlett, flashing a badge very quickly so that it became merely a golden blur.

Platt's expression soured. "You've got a lot of nerve showing up here after what you lot did to me."

"Oooh, scary," said Scarlett, widening her eyes in mock horror. "Give me a break, Platt, I deal with people like you on a daily basis. I'm not here about the Elms business, I've just got a few questions."

Platt threw Scarlett a venomous look and she tensed, ready to strike back, but he merely gave her a grunt of assent. "Then ask 'em."

"That's the spirit," Scarlett said. "Know this woman?"

She held up a photograph of Carol Blumstein, alive and beaming.

"No," said Platt curtly. He straightened and made to shut the door.

"How about now?" Scarlett held up the photograph she'd taken earlier that day, of Carol Blumstein, in pieces and no longer beaming.

"No," said Platt again. Scarlett noted that he had not even flinched. Then he said, "I know you, don't I?"

There were no outward signs of the immediate acceleration of Scarlett's heartbeat upon hearing those words. She merely raised an eyebrow and said, "Probably. Where were you last Thursday night?"

"What's it to you?" Platt said in a growl. "If you people think I had something to do with this, why haven't you already arrested me like last—what are you looking at?"

For Scarlett had suddenly widened her eyes at something in the distance—two figures, one of which Scarlett recognised as one of the Aurors she'd run into that morning.

"Backup," she said. "They ought to be able to loosen your tongue."

"Wha—where are you going?"

Scarlett had begun to back away from the door frame. Platt grabbed the front of her shirt, pulling at the part near her throat.

In one fluid movement, Scarlett hooked her arm around Platt's and twisted while striking the inside of his elbow with her free hand. Platt gasped and released his hold, while Scarlett bolted for dear life.

"I'll take care of him—get that woman!" a female voice yelled from behind her. Scarlett cast a quick glance behind her and sized up her pursuer. He had a young, fresh look about him, and his running posture was poor; he'd be easy to outpace. Still, she knew better than to underestimate him.

A rush of wind flew past her head and a flash of red light immediately succeeded it, narrowly missing her left ear. _Close call_ , she thought, and didn't leave the next one to chance; she leapt to the side as another gust of air swept by, crushing leaves and twigs beneath her feet.

* * *

Platt's house was situated on the outskirts of a dense forest, and Howard knew that the boundaries of Freda's jinx ended on the opposite side of the woods. If he could reach that edge with the young woman still within his range of sight, Howard figured, he might be able to Apparate to her side before she realised the jinx was no longer in effect. It was slightly disconcerting, however, that the woman had not even attempted to Disapparate. Was she privy to insider information of the Auror Office?

It wouldn't surprise him. She dodged each Stunning Spell Howard sent after her with outstanding agility without breaking a step; that took training.

It also meant that Howard needed a new strategy. If he couldn't manage to hit her, maybe he could hit a somewhat more stationary target.

He took aim, muttered _Diffindo_ , and slashed his wand through the air.

* * *

Scarlett doubted she could sustain this for long.

She couldn't run forever. Sure, the Auror couldn't either, but he had partners, backup he could call upon. Scarlett only had herself.

She slid neatly to the side as another spell whizzed past her.

Maybe he would give up. Maybe she could convince him that she didn't know anything, that she was just an innocent, curious, easily frightened girl who had lost her way. _Who just happens to be able to dodge the spells of a trained professional. That'll go over well._

No, she couldn't afford to take that risk. So for now, all she could do was keep on running.

Another flash of light shot past her, missing her by a couple of feet. She smiled, figuring that the gap between them was widening.

Then she saw her mistake.

The streak of light hit the tree and swept across it like a sword, slicing open its trunk. For a moment the tree swayed in the air as if uncertain of how to react to this sudden assault; then it fell to the side, threatening to land directly across Scarlett's path.

At first she thought she'd be able to make it beneath the tree before it landed, so she kept running in the same direction, only faster. Then, as she spotted a squirrel scuttling from beneath the trunk, she slowed for a brief second before she resolved to make the leap.

Planting the palm of her hand firmly upon the top of the fallen trunk, she swung up her legs and vaulted over the tree, landing in a crackle as her boots crushed the scattered leaves to pieces. Then she continued to run without breaking a step.

Another jet of light shot through the air and a second tree fell into her path, this one much more massive than the first. Scarlett had no choice but to change her direction, running alongside the newly descended trunk instead. As she did so, she caught another glimpse of the face of her pursuer: glistening with sweat but eyes hard set in determination. She wasn't losing him any time soon.

Another spell flew past, hitting a tree that was rather shorter and smaller in girth. _Piece of cake_ , she thought as she put her hand on the bark and hoisted herself up into the air.

It was then that the tree trunk erupted into flames.

Pain shot through her hand and up her arm as the burning fire licked the tips of her fingers. On reflex, her hand flew up, leaving her soaring in midair for a second before she fell to the ground, landing on the side of her foot at an awkward angle.

 _Well, fuck_.

* * *

Howard strolled over to the burning wood, dousing the flames with a flick of his wand, pleased that he had thought of the idea to start those flames in the first place.

He stopped at the trunk. Keeping his wand at the ready, he bent over cautiously to get a good look at the woman who had fallen behind it.

He didn't get one.

* * *

Scarlett squeezed the nozzle on her can of pepper spray, unleashing its wrath directly into the Auror's face.

He let out a pained yelp and leapt back, crouching over and clutching his face as his eyes watered.

He stood there like that for a few seconds before raising his wand, as if suddenly remembering he was still holding it. Scarlett instinctively ducked, but he merely put the tip to his cheek and muttered something. Immediately, his face dried.

Immediately, Scarlett sprayed him again.

This time he collapsed to the ground, on the other side of the trunk. Wincing, he repeated his earlier spell before quickly muttering something that sounded a lot like "potato."

Apparently "potato" meant "screen" since a big blue circular screen erupted out of the wand's tip, filling the space between them. Scarlett's gut told her not to try spraying him again.

"You're a Muggle," he said, gaping at her like she was a talking monkey.

"You're just getting that now?" Scarlett said.

"Yet you know about...us," he said, looking positively baffled.

Scarlett stayed silent, deciding it best to wait out what appeared to be a shock-induced episode of stating the obvious.

"Unless you're a Squib?"

"A what?"

"Never mind," he said. Scarlett noticed he hadn't attempted to cast any more spells at her. Of course, maybe he knew she wasn't going anywhere, but that seemed overly foolhardy. She realised that he must not be able to cast anything at her with that big screen in the way.

"How much do you know?" he asked.

Scarlett merely glared at him. Her hand still stung, after all, and she'd definitely sprained her ankle.

"Look, I know you can't run anymore, or you'd be long gone," he said.

"Well, I know that you can't attack me without getting rid of this blue thing," Scarlett said, "and I know that you know that I'd spray you in the face again the moment you shut it down."

"You'd run out eventually."

"Try me."

The young man looked as if he really did not want to try her. "I guess we're at an impasse."

"Matter of opinion. Do you know what a gun is?" Scarlett pulled out her pistol and gripped it tightly in her hand.

The young man's eyes widened a little in surprise, but he looked otherwise unfazed. "As a matter of fact, I do. Are those legal now?"

"Then you know what it can do," Scarlett said, ignoring his question. "Most of your kind just look confused when I pull this out."

"The bullets will bounce right back to you."

"But I'm faster than you," Scarlett said, "and that big blue plate of yours can only cover so much."

The man seemed to consider this. "Erm, yeah, maybe. But you're bluffing. You wouldn't actually shoot me."

"And why not?"

"Because you first asked me whether I knew what a gun was. You don't need to know that to shoot me, but a bluff only works if I recognise what's at stake."

"You willing to bet your life on that?"

"I've seen worse odds."

"Worse than a Muggle girl with a can of pepper spray? I can't even begin to imagine."

Scarlett felt a rush of satisfaction at the sheepish expression that appeared upon the Auror's face. "Erm, well," he said. "I mean, look, I don't want to hurt you. I'm like a police officer, you know, I just want to ask you some questions."

"And then you're gonna do some hocus-pocus on me and make me forget everything I've seen," Scarlett said, still keeping both the gun and the spray can pointed at the man's head. "I know how these things work."

"You seem to know rather a lot," he remarked. "Can you tell me what you were doing with Platt?"

"Same as you," Scarlett said, seeing no reason to conceal it from the man any further, not while she was in this incapacitated state. "I'm investigating the Blumstein murder. I'm a private detective. That's like a—"

"I know what a private detective is," the man assured her.

"Then you know we both want the same thing."

The man appeared to contemplate the incongruity between the words she had said and the gun she was holding. Then—"What do you know about the Blumstein case?"

Scarlett said nothing, staring pointedly at the man's wand.

"Okay, look, I'm dropping my wand on three," the man said. "The shield's going to fall away. You drop the gun and the canister, and then we'll talk. Deal?"

Scarlett bit her lip. "Let me see your badge."

"What?"

"Your Auror badge."

The man nodded and tucked his hand into the folds of his robes before pulling out a shiny silver badge. Though she doubted she'd be able to detect a fake, since a fake was all she had to base her judgment off of, she made a show of squinting at it for his benefit. "Okay," she said finally.

"One," he said, tucking the badge back inside his robes, "Two. Three."

The man dropped his wand to the ground. The blue screen vanished before her. For a split second Scarlett considered spraying him again, but she decided it would only make things worse. She promptly opened her hands and emptied them, wincing as the edge of her canister collided painfully with her kneecap.

"Can you walk?" the man asked, offering his hand.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Scarlett retorted, crossing her arms. Frankly, she wasn't entirely sure how serious the throbbing in her ankle was.

"All right," the Auror said, taking a seat on the side of the tree trunk. "I'm Kruse, by the way. Howard Kruse."

"Scarlett Brewster," she said, her eyes still narrowed at Howard. "Pleasure."

"So what do you know about Carol Blumstein?" he asked.

"People— _Muggles_ , as you call them—come to me when they're concerned about their witch or wizard relatives," Scarlett explained. "Blumstein's sister hired me to find her. I thought she was being paranoid at first, but I managed to track her down before you lot found her."

"You've spoken to her sister?" Howard asked. "Do you think she knows anything that could help us?"

"Can't say, can I, if I don't know what you all know already?" Scarlett pointed out, an idea suddenly occurring to her. "What say we do a little exchange of information? You can introduce me to all your colleagues and I'll tell you what I know."

Howard frowned. "I can't exactly just share all the secrets of the wizarding world with you on demand, can I?"

"Oh, please," Scarlett said, rolling her eyes. "I know that you work for the Auror Office in your little Ministry of Magic, which means your job is to round up magical psychos. I know that your boss is a celebrity and your Minister once worked undercover for one of ours. I know that you all somehow went to the same secondary school in Scotland where you learn spell-casting but also botany and chemistry and astronomy for God knows why. I know you had a massive war in the late nineties that downed the Brockdale Bridge and caused all that mist, and I know all this despite all the efforts of your memory-modifiers."

For a while Howard simply stared. Then he shook his head. "You know too much."

"Which means you wouldn't dare let me out of your sight," Scarlett said, beaming at him. "Look, I'm putting my trust in you now, aren't I? The least you could do is trust me. Here, I'll even let you fix my ankle."

It was a risk, but Scarlett thought that she rather preferred it to the prospect of hobbling back home or trying to explain what had happened to a doctor. Howard raised his eyebrows before slowly extending his arm to pick up his wand, all the while keeping his eyes trained on Scarlett. Then he tapped Scarlett's ankle twice in quick succession, and immediately the pain was relieved.

He proceeded to swipe his wand over both the gun and the canister, both of which vanished from sight.

"Hey!" Scarlett said, leaping up to her feet.

"Don't worry, I'll give them back," Howard said. "Hold out your hand, won't you?"

"Why?"

"Because you burned it."

" _You_ burned it."

"Fair enough. All the more reason I should fix it for you."

Scarlett grudgingly held out her burned hand and let Howard see to it as well.

"You understand," Howard said, "that if I take you to the Office, I can't guarantee that you'll come out with your memory still intact."

Scarlett nodded. It'd be worth the risk.

"All right, then. Take my arm," Howard said, "and brace yourself. It'll be a hell of a ride."

* * *

Mark Peterson had always toyed with the idea of becoming a professor. He fully believed in the potential of young minds, untethered by social obligations. An excellent teacher had the potential to make a significant difference in the life of a child.

Unfortunately, teachers of such caliber tended to be difficult to come by. Hogwarts professors had always had their ups and downs. Mark himself had been amongst the many students who had been forced to suffer through half a dozen different Defence Against the Dark Arts professors in the course of a single Hogwarts education. Most of Mark's own Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, in his opinion, had been insufferable hacks. He'd hoped, now that the school could manage to keep a single professor in the subject, that the quality of the classes would improve. Now was his opportunity to make sure of that fact.

Over the summer, a year after the end of his career as an Auror, Mark had gotten in touch with the headmistress—an old friend of his—and offered up his services. The headmistress, having recently lost her previous Defence Against the Dark Arts professor—a bookish young man by the name of Jacob Brody—to a tragic Fiendfyre accident, had been only too happy to give Mark the job.

Thus, on the thirty-first of August, Mark was now Professor Peterson, sitting snugly within the walls of Hogwarts in his homely office, perusing the _Daily Prophet_ to keep himself updated on the endeavours of his former colleagues. NEW SKULL SMASHER VICTIM FOUND! ANOTHER SLAUGHTERED BY VICIOUS SERIAL KILLER!

Peterson scoffed at the _Prophet_ 's unseemly sobriquet for this unknown killer as he gazed out the window over the top of his paper. At the sight of the Hogwarts lake, his mind turned to other matters. Tomorrow the students would be coming in. There was still some business he ought to attend to before then.

Mark rose from his chair and strolled across the office to the wardrobe standing in the corner. He took ahold of the handle of its door and swiftly pulled it open.

Lying at the bottom of the wardrobe, right where Mark had left it, was a body charred to a crisp. Jacob Brody's own mother would not have recognised him.

Stroking his chin in thought, Mark crouched down beside the late Professor Brody and gazed at his corpse. Though its features had been burned into an uneven, blackened surface, Professor Brody's face seemed still to be pleading with him, with its empty eye sockets and its jaw shaped into a scream.

"Well," said Professor Peterson, "maybe you could've been a better teacher."


	2. Heads and Limbs

"Absolutely not!" roared the heavy-set man, slamming his fist against the desk, knocking over his nameplate and a bin of spare quills.

His secretary let out a yelp of alarm and hurried to righten the items, revealing that the nameplate read, "Carter Fusman—Deputy Head—Auror Office." Fusman was quick to brush her away.

"As I assured them your reaction was likely to be," said Robbie Tresillian, the man standing closest to Fusman's desk. While the Aurors of the Homicide Division turned to Nellie as their leader out in the field, Tresillian was the official Division Director back in the office.

"Look, Rob, I know Howard's the rookie here, but from my experience his judgment is rarely unsound," Nellie replied. "He would never have suggested such a blatant disregard for protocol unless he had a very good reason for it."

Nellie glanced at Howard as she spoke, fully expecting him to resent being called a rookie; after all, he had been an Auror for nearly a year now. Instead his uncertain expression betrayed the fact that he felt much less confident in his own judgment than she did.

"Which is why I did not reject your proposal outright," Tresillian said.

"Could have saved me the effort," Fusman growled. "I'm going to give you ten minutes to get her out of here, or I'm calling the Obliviators."

"But she has information!" Howard protested. "You wouldn't be doing this if she weren't a Muggle, you—"

"Let it go, Kruse," Tristan said from the corner of the office.

"But—"

"Howard, it's no use," Nellie said. "Come on, let's go show her out."

Howard looked like he had plenty more to say, but Nellie gave him a sharp look and he fell quiet. "Good choice," Fusman said with a smug smile, sitting down in his chair before barking at his secretary. "Marion! My tea!"

Nellie, Howard, and Tristan left the office as Marion rushed past them, teacup in hand.

"So that's it, then?" Howard said, rounding on the other two as soon as they were out of earshot of Fusman's office. "We're giving up on a lead just because our source is a Muggle? That's stupid!"

"I merely said we'd escort her out," Nellie said. "I didn't say anything about giving up on her, did I?"

"It wouldn't really have mattered if you had," Tristan pointed out.

"Shut up," Nellie said.

"You better be right about her," Tristan said to Howard. "We told you what happened last time we tried to go off of a Muggle source—"

"Oh, don't be so hard on him," Nellie said. "Why don't you two head down to the Courtrooms and see what you can get out of Platt? I'll take care of our lead."

"Where will you take her?" Howard asked.

"My flat," Nellie said. "You can meet up with us there afterwards."

"Come, Kruse," Tristan said, jerking his head towards the office doors. With a swish of his robes, he led the way out of the Auror Office, and Howard, after casting a fleeting glance in Nellie's direction, rushed after him.

Nellie watched them go. Then she turned around and made her way to her cubicle, where Freda stood waiting, chatting animatedly with the woman Howard had apprehended. Scarlett Brewster sat in Nellie's own chair, a sparkling, silver ribbon of mist binding her wrist to one of the legs of Nellie's desk. Scarlett did not seem to mind; in fact, she appeared to be examining the ribbon with fascination.

"There you are," Freda said, turning to Nellie and holding up a bright blue square of parchment. "Kenzie left this for you, by the way, it's her birthday Saturday and she wants all of us to—"

"We have to go," Nellie interrupted, pulling out her wand.

"Where to?" Freda said.

"Actually, it'd probably be best if you stay here," Nellie said. "If Tresillian asks, tell him I've gone to find Blumstein's sister." She flicked her wand over Scarlett's wrist, freeing her, before offering Scarlett her arm.

"Oh, no," Scarlett said, shaking her head frantically. "No, no, no, no, not _this_ again."

"Do try to keep your lunch inside you this time," Nellie said, making do by putting her hand on Scarlett's arm instead and turning on the spot.

* * *

Scarlett stepped out of the bathroom, dabbing at her lips with a scrap of toilet paper.

"You want some water?" Nellie called out.

Scarlett sat down across from Nellie, scowling at her while accepting the glass of water she offered. "So why am I here? I don't know if he told you, but I made a deal with your friend Howard—"

"You were the one who sent us that tape five years ago, weren't you?" Nellie said, narrowing her eyes at Scarlett.

"I—what?" Scarlett said, swallowing her water a little too quickly, rather taken aback. "Oh—right, that, yeah. How did you know?"

"Platt called out after you, saying he recognised you just before you ran," Nellie said. "It wasn't that hard to put two and two together."

"I didn't think you ever got it," said Scarlett. "You never arrested Platt."

"It's difficult trying to convince wizards that Muggles are a reliable source," Nellie said. "It's the same reason why the Auror Office can't work with you—not officially, at least."

"That's stupid," Scarlett said, crossing her arms.

Nellie smiled. "That's what Howard said."

"Well, it's true," Scarlett said, bolting up from her seat and pacing across the room. "It's the reason why Platt's still out there, and if he's the one ripping people to pieces—"

"I know that," Nellie said. "That's why I'm open to anything you can do to help us."

"Yeah?" Scarlett said. "What can I do for you?"

"How did you find Carol Blumstein?" Nellie said.

"Started off as a pretty routine job," Scarlett said with a shrug. "I found her PA from the photo studio she works at—"

"You were in Hogsmeade?" Nellie asked incredulously.

"'Course not. I found him in this pub, actually, mousy little bloke. Pretty easy to get him to talk, he hated the poor woman. She'd taken a couple of days off from work to go out on a camping trip with some other bloke. Apparently they'd gotten into a row or something, because he ditched her in the middle of the woods."

"She didn't have an Apparition license," said Nellie. "She probably tried to get to the nearest road where she could hail the night bus."

"My thoughts exactly," Scarlett said, though she was not entirely sure what Nellie meant by "night bus" (or was it "knight bus"?) or what an "Apparition license" was. "Then I just searched abandoned cabins in the area until I found that one at the very edge, and there—well, there she was."

"Platt's house was on the edge of a forest, as well," Nellie said thoughtfully. "Do you think there's a connection there?"

"Barely got to talk to Platt, did I?" Scarlett said. "Who knows, there might be."

* * *

Three gruesome pictures were placed before Christoph Platt on the table in the cold, dark courtroom. Platt glared at them defiantly.

"I don't know them," Platt growled. "You have no right to hold me here! I've done nothing, and you've got nothing on me!"

"You tried to jinx an Auror, Chris," Howard said, shaking his head as he sat across from Platt.

"She was trying to arrest me on false pretences!"

"What, on a murder charge from five years ago?" said Tristan, peering at Platt over the bridge of his nose. "Don't think that defence'll hold much water."

"Plus, you divulged wizarding secrets to a Muggle," Howard said. "The Wizengamot's convicted people for less."

"She told me she was with you!" said Platt.

Tristan let out a hollow, humourless chuckle. "Fooled by a Muggle. Better. Nobody would put such idiocy past you."

Platt made to stand up, but the silver ribbons around his legs kept him rooted to the floor. Instead he merely lurched forward, causing the table before him to tremble.

Tristan was pleased to see that Platt was starting to become riled up. Though Tristan was starting to doubt that Platt had anything to do with the Skull Smasher murders, he was certain that Platt had killed before, and such brutal killers were prone to killing again. Tristan would welcome any piece of information that could lock Platt up in Azkaban.

But then, to Tristan's surprise, Platt's hairy lips curled into a sneer. "You have no idea what you're up against, do you?"

Tristan scoffed. "An unkempt, overweight man with anger issues?"

"You will regret this," Platt said, balling up his fists against the tabletop. "All of you Aurors will regret having ever insulted me."

"Oh will I?" Tristan said, planting his palms on the table and leaning in close, staring Platt down with vicious eyes. He was irked by Platt's smug look, as if he knew something that Tristan did not.

"Woah, er, Tristan, easy," Howard said, placing a hand on Tristan's shoulder. Tristan straightened and shrugged it off. "We'll be back."

The Aurors left the courtroom.

"I get the feeling Platt's not the one we're looking for," Howard said.

Tristan raised his eyebrows at him silently.

"Er," Howard tried again. "I mean, don't you think—well, clearly he's acclimatised to violence, when we showed him the pictures he didn't even blink, but this doesn't really fit his style, does it? Where's his prepared alibi this time? All he's got are empty threats."

"Agreed," said Tristan.

"Good. Yeah, okay. So why do we still have him in custody?"

"Because he's a murderer," said Tristan, as if this were obvious.

"You know that for sure?"

"I heard what was unmistakably his voice, boasting and jeering about ripping a man's head clean off of his neck," said Tristan. "If you'd heard it you'd be as convinced as I am."

"Right," said Howard. Then, "How do you explain the alibi? Did he just ask a group of friends to lie for him, and it worked?"

"Do you honestly think somebody like that would have friends?" Tristan said. "The four who came forward in his defense were his lackeys, his henchmen, and he was their head. Whatever he asked of them, they would be compelled to do. I tried to get through to them, to break them—but we needn't go into that, do we?"

Tristan turned to Howard, expecting him to express his disapproval, but Howard was staring intently ahead, his brow furrowed. For a few silent moments, Tristan watched Howard curiously as Howard continued to stare forward, but then Howard spoke. "What did you say?"

"I said I tried to get through to the ones who vouched for Platt," Tristan said.

"No, before that," said Howard. "You said there were four others and Platt was their head."

"If you'd already known what I said—"

"He was the head. He pulled off the head." Howard's eyes widened. "That's what he boasted about, because that's all he did."

"What do you mean?"

"Okay, so maybe Platt has the strength to decapitate someone with his bare hands, sure, he's a large man, and maybe he drank a Strengthening Solution, and he could have put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the victim's shoes and just pulled or something. But would he have the patience to go through every single limb?"

Tristan's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying—"

"There were four others, four of these lackeys, as you put it. One per limb, and he gets the neck. They shackle down his torso and then they all pull until his head and limbs fall off."

"They were in on it together," Tristan said, slowly nodding. "But if four homicidal mates of his are still out there, his threats may not be empty ones. I know for a fact he's had a grudge against us ever since we attempted to arrest him last time. Now that we've brought in Platt a second time, there's a strong likelihood they'll retaliate against us."

"They wouldn't try to break into the Ministry, would they?" Howard said with a concerned frown. Tristan shook his head.

"Not likely," he said. "But we should warn Nellie. Is she still at her flat?"

* * *

Scarlett set down the glass of water on the tea table in front of her before jerking back in surprise. A silver, shimmering snake, long and elegant, slithered through the air and settled beside the glass, extending its hood and baring its fangs at Nellie.

Scarlett reached instinctively for the holster beneath her coat, only to remember that the Aurors had confiscated it. But then the snake began to speak, and Scarlett merely stared at it, enraptured.

"Platt had help," the snake said. "Four people. They may be coming for you."

The snake vanished. Nellie stood, drawing out her wand and flicking it in Scarlett's direction. Suddenly Scarlett found her gun hurtling towards her; she caught it by the barrel.

"Careful with this!" Scarlett said, cradling her gun in her hands. "What was that? What's going on?"

"That was Tristan," Nellie said, pointing her wand at her front door. "Howard said you were fast. Think you can handle yourself?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," Scarlett said, aiming her gun in the same direction. "I—"

The door flew off its hinges and landed on the floor with a clutter.

" _Confringo!_ " Nellie shouted.

The door exploded into a flaming cloud of splinters and dust. Scarlett could hear a horrible hacking sound emitting from behind it; dark silhouettes were visible behind the fire.

Scarlett leapt over the back of the couch and positioned herself behind it, firing bullet after bullet into the flames, aiming low. A figure appeared in the window—large and sneering—and Scarlett turned to shoot at him. There was a shout as the man fell, his arm trying to shield his face from the broken glass.

Then three others burst through the wall of fire, two men and a woman, patches of their clothes still charred or aflame. They charged at Nellie, their skin bronzed and glowing.

"Strengthening Solutions," Scarlett heard Nellie mutter. Indeed, Scarlett noticed that even though the attackers' legs were peppered with bullet wounds, none her bullets seemed to hamper their movements in any way.

Nellie was alone, facing them head on, three to one. If Scarlett couldn't hurt them, she'd have to distract them some other way.

"Hey, you!" Scarlett shouted, jumping up and firing three shots at the biggest and bulkiest of the three, who turned and cast her a fuming snarl.

Scarlett turned on the spot and ran as the man gave chase.

* * *

Nellie held her wand in front of her, shielding herself from the barrage of curses that the man and woman were firing at her. Their aim wasn't too great, but at such close range, it didn't matter; Nellie couldn't risk undoing her Shield Charm.

Instead she kept her wand raised and backed away slowly, keeping her other arm stretched out behind her to guide her way.

She led the two down a hallway and traced her hand against the wall to her left. Finding the right spot, she pressed her entire palm against it, and she sank right through the wall.

She was safe, here, she knew, but she couldn't just leave the Muggle out there to fend for herself. She scanned the small, dark room for a moment, thinking, before getting to work.

Lighting a fire on the floor with her wand, she pulled a cabinet open with her other hand and withdrew a large cauldron from it, which she hovered over the flames.

She shot a jet of boiling water into the cauldron before pulling out a variety of vials and jars from the cabinets that surrounded her, where she always kept her ingredients stocked up in case of emergencies. Pouring and mixing this and that at breakneck speed, she had her potion brewing within a minute. Thankfully, antidotes were quick to finish.

She heard bangs and grunts outside, which she took to mean that the attackers were attempting to break down the wall she had disappeared through. This was good news; as long as she could keep them on her, Scarlett would be safe—at least, as safe as she could be under the circumstances.

As she waited for her potion to brew, she pulled out several glass phials filled with a sort of blue vapour and slipped them into a small brown draw bag. Then as soon as the antidote was done, she scooped it into an empty jar before thrusting her hand through the wall she had come through and emptying the contents of the bag onto the floor. As each phial collided with the floor, Nellie heard a crash, a hiss, and a bang as they exploded like firecrackers.

 _This will be a pain to clean up afterwards,_ she thought, as she burst back through the wall into the hallway to find the man and woman coughing loudly as dark blue smoke surrounded them. Nellie leapt towards the man, pinning his throat to the wall with one hand as she tipped the contents of the jar into his mouth with the other. Pulling out her wand, she sent a jinx at him that would force him to swallow.

By then the woman had recovered. She stood, pointing her wand directly at Nellie's heart as the man howled in pain, clutching at the metal pellets in his leg that he had only just now become conscious of.

The woman grinned widely, apparently savouring the moment, before she spoke. " _Crucio!_ "

* * *

Recalling the general area from which Nellie had emerged with the glass of water, Scarlett sprinted in that direction and was pleased to see that she found herself in the kitchen.

She was less pleased when a flash of green light narrowly missed the edge of her left shoulder. She jumped to the side onto the kitchen counter, watching as the man's momentum propelled him past her before she leapt onto his back, digging her nails firmly into his shoulder blades.

The man swung his fist back wildly and knocked the gun out of her hands; it clattered to the floor and slid out of reach. Scarlett grabbed the man's wand in retaliation and pulled, trying to twist his wrist back while keeping the wand pointed away from her.

The man leaned back and threw Scarlett off his shoulders; Scarlett kept her hand wrapped around his wand, figuring that if she fell, at least the wand would break. But it didn't break, so Scarlett hung from it like a monkey and planted a flurry of kicks at his spine.

The man swung his arm to and fro until Scarlett's grip finally loosened, and she fell to the floor, the wind knocked out of her. As he raised his wand at her, she grabbed a pan from beside her and held it in front of her like a shield. To her immense surprise, this worked; the jet of light that shot out of the man's wand bounced off of it and hit the kitchen sink instead, causing the pipes beneath it to burst open, water rushing out of them and flooding the floor.

The second spell reduced the pan to a pile of dust. In desperation, Scarlett threw the still intact handle at man's face, and he stepped back and winced as it collided with his eyelid.

 _His eyes_ , she thought. That must be his weak point. Her gun nowhere in sight, she climbed back onto the kitchen counter and snatched up a pair of knives.

As the man directed his wand at her once more, Scarlett pressed the flat side of one blade against the wooden stick, pushing it to the side, then plunged the other knife into his eye.

An inhuman howl burst forth from the man as he dropped his wand and clutched at his eye. He raised an arm at Scarlett, swiping wildly at her face, and Scarlett crouched, poised to strike again; but then the man collapsed, falling face first onto the floor with a splash, driving the blade further up into his head.

* * *

The woman was too close. Nellie shut her eyes, bracing herself for the pain that she knew would come.

Instead she heard a loud bang. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring down at half of a wand, the rest of it in shambles on the floor.

" _Stupefy!_ " Nellie yelled, taking advantage of the woman's surprise. The woman fell backwards and crumpled against the wall.

Nellie turned to find Scarlett at the end of the hall, gun still smoking. "Good aim," Nellie remarked, genuinely impressed. Scarlett merely nodded as she walked over to Nellie's side, keeping the gun trained on the two fallen bodies. Nellie Stunned the man she had fed the antidote to for good measure.

"I'm going to call this in," Nellie said. "Where's the big one?"

"Dead," Scarlett said, looking a little shaken, her chest heaving up and down as she tried to catch her breath. "I, er, may have ruined your kitchen."

Nellie laughed, which helped to produce the massive, silver wolf that sprang out of the tip of her wand and bounded off into the distance. She focused her mind on Tristan. _We beat them. Send Healers, reinforcements._

Then she turned to Scarlett. "Are you hurt?"

"Just scrapes and bruises," Scarlett said, shrugging. "I'll be fine."

Scarlett's trousers were torn, and her knee was bleeding badly. Nellie pointed at it and muttered, " _Episkey,_ " and the bleeding was staunched. "Hope that helps."

Scarlett nodded before leaning back against the wall, tucking her gun back into her holster, closing her eyes, and letting out a shaky sigh.

"Hey," Nellie said, putting a gentle hand on Scarlett's shoulder. "Go home. Take a break. I'll put in a good word for you to my boss and you can join us in the investigation whenever you feel like it. Here—" Nellie conjured up a scrap of parchment and handed it to Scarlett. "Go to that address, get in the old phone box, and dial six two four four two. Then go on in and tell them you're with me."

Scarlett opened her mouth; whether to protest or press for more information, Nellie did not know, for at that moment a loud crash sounded from down the hall.

Both of them rushed back into the living room, Scarlett with her gun drawn once more. The man who had attempted to break in through the window had apparently successfully done so; he was now running towards the women, his face red and furious, his wand outstretched, shards of glass sticking out of his skin at odd angles.

" _Stupefy!_ " Nellie cried, but the man deflected the spell with a furious wave of his wand in the direction of Scarlett, who narrowly dodged the streak of red light by sliding to the floor.

"The eyes!" Scarlett shouted, and Nellie understood; she waved her wand in a circle in the air and the bits of glass rose from the man's body. They spun through the air, surrounding him in a sparkling tornado before thrusting themselves into the sockets of his eyes.

As the man staggered back, Nellie extracted the jar of antidote to Strengthening Solution out of the pocket of her robes and tapped it with her wand; it zoomed towards the man and planted its mouth against his, emptying itself down his throat.

There was a loud _pop_ as two people—Tristan and Freda—appeared out of nowhere and strode swiftly across the room, efficiently subduing the howling man as he attempted to bat away the shards of glass that still surrounded him.

"The Healers will be here in a moment," Freda assured them. "Sorry we took so long to get here, Fusman made a huge fuss when we told them you were still with Scarlett."

Nellie looked to Tristan, who gave her a small nod and said, "We'll take it from here."

* * *

The next morning was the first of September. Professor Peterson rose rather early and headed down the stairs to his office, opening the window and allowing the sunlight and the brisk autumn air to stream into the room. Along with these flew in a great horned owl, landing gracefully on the windowsill, a square envelope tied to its leg.

The envelope was addressed to "Mark Peterson, D.A.D.A. Professor's Office, Hogwarts." Mark withdrew a penknife from his pocket and slit the envelope neatly open before emptying its contents into his palm.

"Hi, Mark, we haven't heard from you in ages! Hope it's fun being back at school. Anyway, as I'm sure you remember, it's my birthday on the 3rd and I do hope you'll be at the party I'm having at my place. We all miss you! Sincerely, Kenzie."

Mark smiled fondly to himself as he read the letter, written in the familiar scrawl that he had once come across daily in the paperwork that he had dealt with as an Auror. He had liked Kenzie, had liked his whole team, in fact, and he would indeed be delighted to see them again.

The professor made his way once more to the wardrobe in the corner of his office. Opening its door, he leaned down and, using his penknife with care and precision, began to hack off the blackened bones of the hand of the corpse lying inside.

After a few minutes, the hand fell with a thud to the bottom of the wardrobe. Mark picked it up and set it within the fishbowl-sized stone mortar on his desk before tapping it once with his wand; immediately, the hand was reduced to rubble.

Mark ground away at the bits of charred bone with his pestle until it had attained the consistency of sand. This he poured into his copper cauldron before adding to it a jet of boiling water from his wand.

By the end of the hour, the liquid within the cauldron was pitch black. Mark, who had been reading while waiting for the ink to brew, set down his book and dipped his wand into the cauldron to test the consistency of the fluid.

Nodding in approval, he siphoned off a bit with his wand before rolling up the hem of his robes and clenching his teeth. Pointing the tip of his wand to his shin, he slid it along his skin, injecting the ink into his leg as it joined the dozens of markings beneath it.

It stung painfully, but he did not mind. The professor proceeded to ladle the rest of the ink into the wells he had conjured up beside the cauldron. With a flick of his wand, all but one of them flew off and tucked themselves into a drawer at the bottom of his desk.

Mark dipped his favourite quill, dark blue in colour, into the remaining inkwell, and he began to pen his reply.


	3. Methods of Persuasion

"Kenzie always throws the best parties," Freda said, grinning at Howard's side.

Howard nodded absently, glancing around at the dimly lit room as they entered. The place was packed with what appeared to be nearly fifty people. Personally he found it odd that anyone would want to spend a birthday hosting a big party for others, but as he spotted Kenzie gliding through the masses, laughing and hugging all within reach, he noted that she seemed to derive her own sort of pleasure from catering to hordes of her friends and acquaintances.

Then again, Howard had never really liked big parties much. They were always too loud and crowded for any interesting conversation. He supposed he was just being bitter.

"Think I'm gonna go and dance," Freda said, her eye on the purple lights illuminating a patch of the floor across the room. "You want to come, too?"

"I'm good, thanks," Howard said, taking a seat in a chair by an empty table. "You wouldn't want to see me dance, believe me."

With a giggle, Freda disappeared into the crowd. Howard let out a wide yawn and leaned his head back so that his sore neck rested on the back of the chair.

He'd stayed at the office till nearly midnight the night before, poring over files and photographs of the Skull Smasher case to the point where his own skull felt like it was caving in. Ever since the arrest of Platt and his gang for conspiracy to murder, assault on an Auror, and assault on a Muggle, they had failed to acquire any new leads, especially after it was revealed that Platt had a genuine alibi for one of the Skull Smasher murders. Still, Howard had written up a list of possible lines of inquiry he could follow up on first thing Monday, and he now found himself going through it in his head, wondering if there was anything he could have missed.

"Hello, Howard."

Howard looked up, blinking as if dazed. "Oh—hi, Nellie."

Nellie sat down across from Howard. She was accompanied by a straight-backed, well-tailored man who took a seat beside her. "We seem to have derailed your train of thought," the man said with a smile of apology.

"Er, no, it's fine, derail away," Howard said, waving his hand casually in the pair's direction. "Sorry—have we met?" he added, squinting in the man's direction.

"Howard, this is Mark," Nellie informed him, "Mark Peterson. Mark, this is Howard Kruse."

"Pleasure to meet you." Mark Peterson offered Howard his hand.

Howard replied, "Yeah, you—you, too. I've heard loads about you, of course." He was a little surprised; from the way Howard's colleagues spoke of Peterson, Howard had always pictured the ex-Auror to be built like a warrior, sturdy and dense; instead Peterson would not have been out of place as a waiter at an expensive restaurant.

"Nothing too bad, I hope?" Peterson said, shaking Howard's hand with a firm grip. Howard replied with trembling laughter and a shake of his head, recalling that he had never been quite sure why Peterson, who looked no older than Nellie or Tristan, had quit being an Auror in the first place.

"I, uh, heard you were a teacher?" Howard said, recalling a remark Nellie had made a few weeks ago.

"I've only just started," Peterson said, folding his hands in front of him. "Just yesterday, in fact. It's really rather fun—I've always found bright young minds a delight to be around. Speaking of," Peterson opened out his palm in Howard's direction, "I hear you've done some brilliant work yourself. Nellie tells me you're very good at connecting the dots. I imagine that was what you were doing before my unfortunately timed interruption?"

"Oh—yeah, it's kind of a bad habit," Howard said. "I can never stop thinking about cases."

"A most regrettable occupational hazard," Mark said. "I'm afraid I was often guilty of it myself. I imagine they have you assigned to the Skull Smasher case?"

"We can't discuss ongoing cases, you know that, Mark," Nellie said with an amused smile. "But I can tell you Howard's filled your shoes quite nicely."

"No, no, I'm just doing the best I can," Howard said modestly as he glanced over Mark's shoulder, making eye contact with Freda as she gave him a little wave before she disappeared into the crowd once again. When Howard glanced back at Mark, Mark was nodding, and his eyes were staring intensely into Howard's. While this normally would have put Howard slightly on edge, instead he felt strangely calmed. He had Mark's full attention.

* * *

It was Monday morning when Scarlett found herself staring at the bright red telephone box standing on the pavement in front of her. Clenching her fist around the strap of her purse and steeling her resolve, she marched towards the phone box and yanked open the door.

"Thought I might find you here."

Scarlett whirled around. Howard was standing just behind her, his hands tucked into his pockets, the corner of his lip curled up a little as if he was trying to hold back a smirk.

"Can't say the same about you," Scarlett said, shutting the door to the phone box again and leaning back against it. "Or have you been waiting for me here every morning?"

"I figured today would be the day you'd show up," Howard said. "You'd take at least a couple of days off, and you wouldn't come over on the weekend, so here we are today."

"And what if I never showed?" said Scarlett, crossing her arms.

"Well, there was something I wanted to follow up on," said Howard, turning around and heading into a nearby alleyway. "Want to join me?"

Scarlett chuckled and followed him down the alleyway. There were no cars in sight; they were alone. "Er, what exactly are we doing here?"

"Watch," said Howard, "and don't be alarmed." He stuck out his right arm over the kerb.

There was a loud BANG as a vividly purple, massive triple-decker bus appeared out of nowhere and turned into the alleyway, screeching to a stop directly in front of them. The words 'The Knight Bus' were written in gold over the windshield. A scrawny man in his forties with large ears and stubble stepped out wearing a matching purple uniform and began to speak.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded—"

"Auror Office," said Howard, cutting the man off and showing him his badge. "We have a few questions for you, Stan."

The man fidgeted, looking extremely uncomfortable. "Can't stop. Tight schedule." He stepped back into the bus and called out, "Take it away—"

"You haven't done anything wrong, Stan, there's no need to worry," Howard said, putting his foot against the bus door to keep it from shutting all the way. "Just a quick question—do you recognise this woman?"

"I dunno, we get all sorts on 'ere," Stan said, squinting at Howard's photograph of Carol Blumstein. "Might 'ave—'ang on—Carol, was it? Flagged us down 'bout a week or two ago."

"Where did you pick her up?" Howard asked.

"Didn't, did we?" Stan said with a scowl.

"What do you mean?" said Howard.

"Changed 'er mind, never came on, did she?" Stan said. "Thanked us for the trouble and went on 'er merry way."

"Did you notice anything unusual about her?" Scarlett asked, looking at Stan with renewed interest.

"Now you mention it, she did look all glassy-eyed for a moment before she left," Stan said.

Howard frowned. "Do you think anyone on the bus saw her?"

"Nope, she never came in," Stan answered. "And it was night, see, everyone was sleepin'."

"What time was this?"

"Bit before five in the mornin'."

"And did you see anyone else with her? Anyone nearby?"

"Too dark to see. Can we get a move on, now?" Stan's eyes darted uneasily behind his shoulder.

"Of course, yeah," Howard said. "Thanks for your time."

Howard removed his foot, and with another BANG the bus vanished from sight.

"He seemed nervous," Scarlett remarked as they made their way back to the phone box.

"He was imprisoned on false charges twenty years ago," Howard said. "Then some bad people broke him out, put him under the Imperius curse—"

"What's that?" Scarlett asked.

"Mind control," Howard said, opening the door for the phone box for her. She stepped inside and he followed, shutting the door behind them. "In fact, I have a feeling that might have been what happened to Blumstein. We know she died at ten minutes past five, so the killer must have been extremely quick about dismembering her. That would have been much easier if she'd been entirely complacent." He picked up the phone dialled six two four four two.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," said a cool female voice. "Please state your name and business."

"Howard Kruse, Auror Office, Homicide Division," Howard spoke in a loud, clear voice. "I'm here with Scarlett Brewster, Special Consultant."

"Thank you. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."

Scarlett extracted a silver badge from the coin return and pinned it to the front of her shirt. "'Special Consultant'?" she repeated, glancing down at the badge's text.

"You know, like in the detective stories," Howard said.

"You know there's no such thing as consultant detectives in real life?" Scarlett said with a smile.

"You know there's no such thing as magic in real life?" Howard said, matching her smile with one of his own as the floor of the telephone box began to sink into the ground.

"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day," said the woman's voice.

* * *

An inordinate amount of being an Auror was paperwork. Nellie found herself sorting through files once again when Scarlett and Howard made their way into the office.

"I see you're well-rested, Scarlett," Nellie said, glancing up with a quick smile at them both before returning to her work. "Welcome back."

"Did your boss change your mind about me?" Scarlett asked, taking a seat beside Nellie and glancing over at the files dangling in the air in front of them.

"Not exactly," Nellie admitted. "I went over his head. Our Office Head's much less prejudiced against Muggles."

"Oh," said Scarlett, "is that the one who's a celeb—"

"Hey," Kenzie said, striding in with a clipboard in hand. "Take a look at what Toby found." He passed the clipboard over to Nellie, who accepted it with a careful glance.

"Sylvester Waterford?" Nellie said, frowning at the name she'd read aloud from the clipboard. "Wasn't that Hal Ward's business partner?"

"Hal Ward?" repeated Scarlett.

"Victim number two," Kenzie explained. "I don't think we've met! I'm Kenzie Birch, I'm the Necropser."

"Like a medical examiner," Howard added for Scarlett's benefit.

"Scarlett Brewster," said Scarlett Brewster. "Private—er, Special Consultant. What's on the clipboard?"

"Waterford was indicted by the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office ten months ago for—well, misusing a Muggle artefact," Nellie said, returning the clipboard to Kenzie. "Several, actually. Medieval torture devices."

"What?" Howard said, snatching the clipboard from Kenzie and scanning over it himself. "Like racks, iron maidens, that sort of thing?"

"He'd been collecting them in his basement," said Kenzie, a shade of marvel in her voice. "But they had to let him off after they couldn't prove he'd ever actually _intended_ to use them on anyone. Say, you don't think…?"

"Why don't you go and check it out?" Nellie said, knowing when Kenzie was intrigued. "Take Toby with you."

Kenzie beamed back at her. "I'm on it," she said and bounded off.

"You're sending your medical examiner into the field?" Scarlett said, watching Kenzie go. "You are desperate."

Howard glared at Scarlett, but Nellie merely shrugged. "It's worth a shot," she said. "First we've heard of any relation to a victim with a criminal record. And wouldn't enchanted torture devices explain the dismemberings?"

"But there weren't any signs of a struggle," Howard said. "If you wanted to torture someone, you'd do it nice and slow. Our killer was quick and brutal."

"Didn't say it wasn't a long shot," Nellie said. "Still, we might as well—"

"Hi Nellie, Howard," Freda said, joining the three of them in the cubicle with yet another file in her hands and looking rather out of breath. "Oh—hi, Scarlett. The news just came in: there's been another Smasher murder."

* * *

"Victim's name, Kenneth Lyons, twenty-four," Tristan said, leaning over the mangled, broken corpse. "Cause of death, decapitation. Time of death, four-forty this morning."

"How do you get such a precise time of death?" Scarlett asked.

"Magic," Tristan said.

"But you can't just tell who killed him?"

"Magic works in strange ways."

Howard stared at the image before him. Lyons's limbs were positioned next to their joints as if someone had attempted to glue him back together. His clothes were strewn in a messy pile beside him, with the exception of a few stray buttons scattered atop his body and a torn bit of fabric beneath his shoulder.

"There was pressure applied to the shoulder and forearm," Freda said. "It looks like our killer was kneeling on them in order to saw the arms off."

"Look at those wrists," Nellie said, gesturing at them, where the skin had been rubbed red and raw. "We've never had signs of a struggle like this before."

"Yeah, it's not the Smasher," Howard said.

Tristan, Freda, Nellie, and Scarlett all turned to stare at him. Howard cleared his throat a little.

"The way he died is practically identical to the way I found Blumstein," Scarlett said. "Are you saying this was a copycat?"

"I—maybe," Howard said, frowning slightly and crouching down beside the body. "Do any of you have a photograph of the previous crime scene?"

Scarlett brought out a phone from her purse, tapped through it, and handed it over to Howard. Freda looked particularly intrigued by the Muggle contraption.

"Look, it's all backwards," Howard said, pointing from the phone's screen to the actual body. "With Blumstein the body parts look like they were just randomly scattered, but her clothes are quite orderly. Maybe they're not folded or anything, but they're almost like someone was laying them out to wear. But here, the body looks like it was just pinned down and chopped up, none of the body parts have been moved from their original positions. Meanwhile the clothes were torn off hastily and tossed into a heap."

"But we've kept most of the details of Skull Smasher murders out of the press," Nellie said. "The public doesn't know the latest victim was dismembered."

"Yeah, well, someone found out, there are too many similarities as well," Howard said, rising again and glancing about the room. "Abandoned building, nobody living within miles of the place, victim stripped naked, bones crushed, skull crushed, dismembered and decapitated. But it's just an imitation."

For a few moments, there was silence. Howard turned his back on his colleagues, staring at the walls, lost in thought.

"Well, we might be able to get a better picture of what happened here once Toby and Kenzie get back from Waterford's," Nellie finally said. "Shall we send the body back to the Ministry, then?"

Tristan murmured something in assent, but Howard wasn't paying attention.

"Howard?" Freda asked. "Howard, did you hear us?"

"The copycat had to pin down the victim to saw off his limbs," Howard said, turning back slowly to look at the body. He began to walk alongside it, circling it, his hands tucked in his pockets, his head cocked to one side. "It would have required effort, time. How come the Skull Smasher was able to accomplish it all in the span of ten, fifteen minutes? Stan Shunpike last saw Blumstein just before five, and she died at five-ten."

"You said you thought somebody was controlling her mind," Scarlett recalled.

"You mean, the Imperius Curse?" Tristan said. "There would have been traces left on the body if she'd died while under that. As far as I recall, there weren't any."

"No, no, even if Blumstein was Imperiused, it still doesn't explain how quickly the Smasher managed to dismember her," Howard said. "Sure, there wouldn't have been a struggle, but we're talking about four limbs and a head in the span of ten minutes—and we know the head came off last."

"And it wasn't directly by magic," Freda said, recalling Kenzie's words. "So it must have taken some effort."

Howard's eyes lingered for a moment on the pile of clothes at his feet. "And the clothes," he said, glancing back at Scarlett's phone. "The way they were lain out—why would someone so quick about the murder take the time to do that? Unless…"

"Unless?" Scarlett repeated, looking at Howard. "Come on, don't leave us hanging like that—"

"Unless they just…naturally ended up that way," Howard said. "The Smasher shrunk them."

"The clothes?" Freda said, frowning.

"No, the victims," Howard said. "You know, like, _Reducio_. The clothes didn't shrink with them, so they merely fell to the floor, which is why they looked like they'd been placed that way. The Smasher didn't strip the victims, they just ended up out of their clothes after they'd been shrunk."

"You're right, that would have made tearing off the limbs a piece of cake," Nellie said, slowly nodding. "You'd be able to do it with your bare hands."

"The Smasher lifts the Imperius Curse and lets the victim run amok, entirely helpless," Howard said. "The rest of it's like torturing an insect—the limbs are torn off one by one, the head is removed, the pieces are scattered. The charm wears off and the body parts return to their usual size. And it explains why the killer's method apparently changed so drastically—it's not actually that big of a leap from crushing to dismemberment if you can do it all with a pinch of your fingers."

"Why go to all that trouble?" said Tristan.

"Superiority complex, expression of dominance, the usual," Howard said with a shrug. "Serial killers are psychos. What bothers me is our copycat."

"It is kind of weird, isn't it?" said Scarlett. "Whoever killed Lyons knew _most_ of the details but not _all_ of them. Who'd fit that description?"

"Or the killer did know all the details and deliberately did the opposite," Howard said.

"What?" Scarlett said, but Howard merely shrugged faintly and shook his head.

"It's definitely a copycat, then?" Freda said, glancing down at the corpse.

"Believe so," Tristan said, pointing at the victim's left forearm. "I've only just noticed, a chunk of his shoulder is missing. The Skull Smasher's never kept parts of the victims before."

* * *

Mark glanced over the slice of burnt shoulder, twirling it between his fingertips. Giving it a sniff, he nodded in approval before dropping it into the mortar.

* * *

Tobias took a large breath of air, basking in the sunlight shining down upon his face. Though he didn't get out much, he was nevertheless appreciative of a warm summer day, especially as the days closed in on the fall.

Thus, when he shivered, it was less to do with the weather and much more to do with the sign he had just walked past.

KNOCKTURN ALLEY

On the contrary, Kenzie was in her element. Her eyes widened as a pair of tall women emerged from a nearby shop, one carrying an enormous rusty iron music box, the other wearing what resembled a fat, dead eel.

Tobias scratched at his chin and looked around in an attempt to calm his nerves. "Which way are we headed, might I ask?"

Kenzie pointed directly ahead of them at a black sign that read WARD & WATERFORD in terse gold lettering. "Right there."

"Ah. I'm afraid my eyesight isn't how it once was," Tobias said with a wry smile.

They made their way over to the sign just as the door swung open. A small, bald man squeezed past them, carrying a box labelled EXPLODING SNAP CHIPS: 7977 GALLEON SET.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Waterford?"

Kenzie had walked up to the front counter and was now addressing the man standing behind it. Meanwhile, Tobias hung back at the door, surveying the shop's contents.

Ward & Waterford sold gambling equipment. This had been briefly mentioned on the report from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, and Tobias was now reminded of the note in full force as he examined the roulette wheels that never ceased to revolve, the decks of Exploding Snap, the dice that morphed from cubes to octahedrons and back again. There was not an instrument of persuasion in sight.

The large, burly man behind the counter remained silent. He merely shook his head.

"Well, then, could you please tell me where I could find him?" Kenzie asked patiently.

The man stared at her wordlessly, unblinking.

"I'm with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, you see," Kenzie explained calmly, smiling warmly at the man as she pulled out a card identifying her as such.

The man narrowed her eyes at her. For a long moment, Tobias wondered if perhaps he did not know English, but then the man turned around and ambled through a doorway behind him into the back of the store.

A much slimmer man in bright blue robes returned with him, wearing a jovial smile. "Welcome, welcome! How may I help you, Miss...?"

"Kenzie Birch, Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Kenzie said. People tended to become uncomfortable when Kenzie announced her specific occupation in public, but the name of the largest Ministry department was easily recognisable. "This is my colleague, Tobias Klavan. Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"Be my guest," said Mr. Waterford. "In fact, come inside so we can all sit down, won't you?" He tapped his wand on the countertop, and it split into two, half of it receding into the wall.

Kenzie followed Mr. Waterford behind the counter and through the doorway while Tobias trailed after them. Expecting the large, silent man to stay at the counter, Tobias was surprised to hear the man's heavy footsteps close behind.

They entered a small, bright room with a single red sofa upon which Mr. Waterford took a seat, while Kenzie sat down beside him. Tobias sat down gingerly next to her, rather unnerved by the big man, who remained by the doorway like a sentry.

"Ask me anything," said Mr. Waterford, relaxing into his seat on the couch.

"We'll get right to it, then," said Kenzie. "We're here about the murder of your business partner, Hal Ward."

"Most tragic," said Mr. Waterford, his smile finally vanishing as he replaced it with a look of immense sorrow. "But I was under the impression that I had already answered any questions the Aurors had for me, hadn't I?"

"And now we have more!" Kenzie replied brightly. "On October nineteenth of last year you were discovered to be in possession of certain Muggle artefacts. Do you mind telling us about them?"

"Every man needs a hobby," said Mr. Waterford. "Muggles are such imaginative creatures, don't you think? That's why their methods are so absolutely fascinating."

Suddenly Mr. Waterford stood up. "Ultimately, they let me keep them. After all, they're merely for show; it would be preposterous to suggest that I would ever use them on anybody, much less my friend! Would you like to see them?"

"Yes, please," Kenzie said, standing up as well and glancing around the room as if she expected a torture device to pop out of a wall at that instant.

Tobias was rather more reluctant. "Forgive me, but I don't believe Miss Birch mentioned that we intended to suggest that you had done anything to Mr. Ward," he said, rising and bowing his head in Mr. Waterford's direction. "What put that notion into your head?"

"Come, now, you couldn't be more transparent," said Mr. Waterford. "But I wish to be transparent as well. Come this way, if you will."

With a jerk of his wand, Mr. Waterford opened what appeared to be a trapdoor at the edge of the room before descending into it, beckoning the others to follow.

"I believe I would rather stay behind," Tobias said with a wave. If anything were to happen, he figured, someone had to be able to alert the Auror Office.

"As you wish," Mr. Waterford called, his voice echoing up from below. Kenzie gave Tobias a reassuring smile before following Mr. Waterford down the trapdoor, which closed behind her with a slam.

Then there was silence.

Tobias turned to the large man at the doorway and spoke politely, "Fine weather we are having, no?"

* * *

Back at the Auror Office, Scarlett sat beside Howard, watching as he sifted through stacks of papers by hand. "What exactly are you looking for?"

"A connection," he said without looking up. His hand hovered over a leaflet for a moment, but then he apparently changed his mind as he brushed it aside.

"Look, I'm just a private detective," Scarlett said, leaning back in her seat, "But isn't that the first thing you're supposed to do when you're hunting serial killers?"

"Of course," Howard said a little impatiently as he crumpled one sheet into a ball and tossed it in a wastebasket, where it promptly vanished. "You can guess how well that went. But now we have a fresh perspective."

"Yeah, so we know the killer's going all _Gulliver's Travels_ on these poor bastards," Scarlett said. "How exactly does that give us a fresh perspective?"

"Our killer feels compelled to crush victims the way you'd crush an insect," Howard said. "There are two ways one could interpret that. Either our killer is disgusted by these people and believes them to be worthless pests, or our killer is the one who feels unworthy compared to these victims and needs to use physical size to compensate for the difference in status."

"So you're trying to decide whether they're the pests, or they look at others that way," Scarlett said, looking up at the photographs of the three victims pinned up next to Howard on the wall. "How's that going for you?"

"Well, so far, it appears to be the latter case," Howard said. "Victim number one, Melanie Goldwater, was a reporter for the _Daily Prophet_ —that's a newspaper," he added. "By all accounts she wasn't a very pleasant person to work with; her colleagues didn't seem to have anything against speaking ill of the dead when it came to her. She would badger her assistants and make impossible demands of them, like keeping her tea at exactly the right temperature and that sort of thing. She'd steal others' scoops and publish them as her own, and she wasn't above rubbing it in their faces afterwards. She—"

"Yeah, an all-around bitch, I get the gist," Scarlett said. "What about Ward?"

"Unfortunately, there's very little we know about Ward," Howard admitted. "Waterford told us he was a pleasant enough person to work with, but otherwise Ward didn't seem to be attached to anyone at all. He was an only child raised by a single mother who died four years ago with no remaining relations, and we couldn't find anyone who knew him as a friend, either."

"Well, that's that," Scarlett said. "And Blumstein?"

"Her sister was your client, you probably know her better than we do," Howard pointed out.

"Yeah, but she thinks her sister was a perfect angel," Scarlett said. "Though now that you mention it, I did talk to her PA, he hated her guts. And I spoke to her boyfriend, too, the one who ditched her at the campsite—he told me he was fed up with her trying to control every aspect of his life or something."

"Second option's seeming a bit more likely, then," Howard said. "Our serial killer targets the controlling, the domineering, those who prey on the weak so that they can get a taste of their own medicine."

"But that raises the question," Scarlett said with a frown. "What was it that Ward did that got the killer's knickers in a twist, and how the hell did the killer find out about it if you couldn't?"

* * *

The horrid cast-iron face towered over Kenzie, its face locked in an eternal unheard scream above the spiked sarcophagus.

"Careful with that," said Mr. Waterford, who stood just behind her, his hands clasped in front of him.

Kenzie raised an eyebrow at him before extracting her wand from the pocket of her robes. Biting the corner of her lip, she touched its tip to the side of the iron maiden.

"YAAAAAAAAAH!"


	4. Caught in the Web

"YAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Oh, my," said Mr. Waterford, frowning slightly. "What was that all about?"

Kenzie's head jerked upward, her wand aloft. "Toby," she whispered, then sprinted back up the stairs leading to the trapdoor. She wrapped her fingers around the handle of the hatch and pulled.

It did not budge.

"Mr. Waterford, how do you open this door?" she asked.

"Ah, it only opens for me, you see," said Mr. Waterford with a thin smile.

Kenzie whirled around and jabbed her wand at Mr. Waterford's throat. "Mr. Waterford, open the door, please."

"Yes, yes, all right," he said, eyeing Kenzie's wand looking slightly alarmed. He reached over Kenzie's shoulder and pulled on the hatch.

It did not budge.

"It's not working," Mr. Waterford said, rather unnecessarily.

"Mr. Waterford, move aside, please," Kenzie said, directing her wand at the hatch. He did not need to be told twice; raising his arms in the air, he backed up a few steps on the stairs. " _Expulso!_ "

The force of Kenzie's curse blasted a meter-wide crater through the ceiling. Mr. Waterford was blown off of his feet and tumbled down to the bottom of the stairs; Kenzie, who had had the foresight to grab onto the railing, barely managed to keep her footing before clambering up the steps out of the basement.

For a moment she blinked, dazed at the sudden light. Then, once her eyes focused, she blinked again, dazed at the sight before her.

The burly man was tugging on a thick and rusty iron chain, one of four matching chains that was attached to each of Tobias's limbs, suspending him in the shape of an X across the wall.

" _Stupefy!_ " Kenzie shouted. With a flash of red light, the large man crumpled to the ground, his body barely missing the edge of the hole.

Tobias struggled and squirmed, tugging at his bindings. "K-Kenzie! Thank god!"

Kenzie rushed over to the wall against which Tobias was chained and slashed her wand over the iron links. " _Relashio!_ "

The chains did not give way. They remained firmly shackled around Tobias's wrists and ankles.

Kenzie tried again. " _Reducto!_ "

The spell merely ricocheted off of the chains and onto the floor, a patch of which crumbled to dust, widening the gaping chasm to the basement. Kenzie grabbed onto one of the chains to steady herself.

" _Diffindo! Reducio! Defodio!_ "

"I— _GAAAAAAAH!_ "

Kenzie leapt back. The chains had suddenly shortened, retracting into the walls and pulling Tobias's arms and legs ever more taut. Tobias writhed and screamed, straining to pull free, his chest heaving as glistening beads of sweat trailed down the sides of his face.

Kenzie leaned in and patted Tobias gently on the knee. "Toby. Toby, look at me."

Tobias's breath slowed. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, glancing down at Kenzie. "Y-yes, all right…"

"Do you know how I can get these chains off of you?" Kenzie said.

Tobias groaned and shook his head, his jaw clenched in agony. "These are…no ordinary…chains…"

Kenzie looked up at Tobias's haggard face, keeping her eyes locked on his in reassurance. "It's okay, Toby, you don't have to talk. Just listen."

Tobias nodded. Kenzie frowned at the smooth stone wall behind him, rapping her knuckles against it uncertainly. Maybe she could simply detach the whole thing? She pictured herself hauling a wall over to the Ministry with Toby still attached to it; absurd, yes, but it just might work.

As she touched the tip of her wand to the wall, however, she could tell that it would be a fruitless endeavour. The chains had been attached to the wall with what Kenzie recognised as a Permanent Sticking Charm, and the wall itself seemed to be actively resisting the wand's touch.

Then another idea occurred to her. Biting the corner of her lip, she gazed up at Toby once more.

"Toby," she said gently, "I'm going to cut off your hands and feet."

" _What?_ "

"I'll figure out a way to reattach them afterwards," Kenzie spoke rapidly, her eyes darting to the spot where one of the chains was gradually retracting into the corner of the room. "Trust me, I've amputated loads of limbs before."

"On corpses!" Tobias pointed out. "You never made it past Healer training!"

"Fair point," Kenzie said, pointing at Tobias's ankles with her wand. "Hold your breath, then."

Tobias let out something between a curse and whimper. "Go on, then."

A puff of wispy orange vapour burst out the tip of Kenzie's wand and cloaked Tobias's shoes in a shimmering bubble. "Local anaesthetic," she explained. "Still, it wouldn't hurt to brace yourself."

Tobias squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into fists. Kenzie sliced her wand through the air.

With a clatter, Tobias's left foot fell towards the floor, dangling from the end of the chain. Kenzie repeated the process on the right foot.

"Is it done?" Tobias asked a little while later.

"Yes, but keep your eyes shut," Kenzie said, watching as blood seeped out of the stumps at the ends of Tobias's legs along the bottom of the wall and dripped onto the floor. " _Incendio!_ "

A jet of fire burst out the tip of Kenzie's wand and licked the ends of Tobias's legs, cauterising the wounds. Kenzie flicked her wand again, and the flames vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Now for the hands. Only now did Kenzie realise that the chains had dragged Tobias too far up the wall for her to make a clean cut. If her aim was off, she might very well chop off his head instead.

A tall wooden stool sprouted out of the end of Kenzie's wand—a bit rickety, but it would have to do. Kenzie climbed on top of it and stood on her tip-toes, reaching for Tobias's wrists.

The stool did not do.

Kenzie had forgotten about the massive hole behind her. As she tipped forward, the stool tipped back; one of its legs slipped over the edge of the abyss, and the rest of her stool—and her body—tumbled after it.

* * *

Scarlett leaned over the railing at the far end of the Auror Office, watching windows that overlooked a rainy scene. She'd been assured (not that it had been particularly reassuring) that the windows were enchanted, which was why they could witness the weather despite being very deep underground.

"You good?"

Scarlett noticed Nellie standing just behind her in the window's reflection and nodded without turning around. "Yeah. Yeah, of course."

"All right," said Nellie, joining Scarlett at the railing and letting silence hang over them.

Sometimes, Scarlett felt, the less you wanted to talk about something, the more you wished someone would ask you about it. It was, after all, the principle by which she squeezed out most of the information she sought. She was less grateful for the phenomenon, however, when the one asking the questions wasn't her.

"Why do you ask?" Scarlett blurted out.

"Well, you did kill a man a week ago," Nellie pointed out.

That, Scarlett felt, was putting it nicely. "I had to."

"I know you had to," Nellie said. "I'm not here to criticise, Scarlett, I'm here to listen."

Scarlett slowly nodded, giving Nellie a wry smile. "Right, then. Sorry in advance if I fuck this up. I'm not used to having listeners."

"Well, you do work alone," Nellie said.

"Occupational hazard," Scarlett said, absently rubbing her thumb back and forth on the edge of the railing. "You have to work alone when you're dancing around the fringes of a world nobody's supposed to know exists."

"And does that bother you? Having to work alone?"

Scarlett shrugged. "Maybe a bit. It's a little overwhelming, knowing there's this whole other world hiding inside yours. I mean, I've been doing this for years, but all of this, it's just one surprise after another. Still, working with you and Howard—I feel a lot more steady. Like I can take on anything." Then she rolled her eyes. "Damn, that was soppy."

Nellie smiled. "I appreciate working with you as well. You've been a great addition to our team."

Scarlett nodded again in silence, but in truth, she was pleased.

"But it's also my job to make sure everyone on my team is in good shape," Nellie continued. "So if there's anything that's bothering you, don't be afraid to share."

Scarlett swallowed before she decided to answer. "I'm not saying the man deserved what he got," she said, choosing her words carefully, "but he definitely would have killed me if I hadn't taken him out first. So I don't regret killing him."

"But?"

"But nothing," Scarlett said, throwing her hands up into the air. "No questions, nothing on the news, no follow-up, no police knocking in my door…nothing. No repercussions. Not even a slap on the wrist."

"We're very good at cleaning up after ourselves."

"No kidding."

"I didn't say it was a good thing."

Scarlett glanced back towards the window. "You people can make it rain underground, for crying out loud. You make a problem go away and paint a pretty picture in its place. But how do you make sure nothing slips by unnoticed? How do you keep people accountable if they can just cover up their problems?"

"We try our best," Nellie said. "Of course the system is flawed. Our legal system is outdated. Our economy is in the hands of goblins digging up gold who threaten to revolt every five years. Half our population has to work for the government just to keep the magical society up and running and hidden away.

"But we try our best. It's what we have to do to keep the world from falling apart."

* * *

"Kenzie! _KENZIE!_ "

The sound of metal on stone echoed through the air as Tobias twisted and turned beneath his bindings, his fingers numb as the cold iron chains cut off circulation to his hands through his wrists, his elbows trembling, goosebumps climbing up his arms.

 _Calm down_ , he told himself. _Calm. Down._

Kenzie never panicked. She was cool as a cucumber, level-headed and ready for anything that came her way. Tobias didn't know how she did it.

He forced himself to open his eyes and look downwards. Though he worked with dead bodies daily, the sight of his detached feet lying on the floor made his stomach churn.

 _Focus_. His official job title in the Auror Department was Experimenter: an expert in general magical theory and investigative techniques with a knack for charmwork that allowed him to offer whatever wisdom that was required of him. Screaming for Kenzie had been of no use; the fall had no doubt knocked her out. If anything was going to get him out his predicament, it would be his wits alone.

Or would it? Tobias glanced down at the Stunned man, who, unlike Kenzie and Mr. Waterford, was not on the basement floor and was easily visible. Though it had all happened so quickly, Tobias had a sneaking suspicion that Kenzie had misconstrued the man's actions. It had been very painful when the man had yanked against the chain on his leg, but perhaps that had merely been the man's attempt to release Tobias from its grasp?

If Tobias was right, then maybe the man could help him. And if he was wrong…well, he would worry about that later.

The least of his problems was that the man had been Stunned, and Tobias's wand was in the pocket of his trousers—inaccessible with his hands chained up. Tobias shoved back against the wall and swung his body forward, attempting to strike the man with his stump of a leg. He missed by inches, managing only to collide painfully back against the stone wall.

Heaving, he tried again, thrusting his hip back against the wall to give himself an extra push. For a hopeful moment he found himself hovering just above the man's prone body, only to realise that no matter how far he could stretch, there was no way Tobias could reach the man with his ankles alone.

The chains were now steadily shrinking. He felt less of a pull now that his legs were unattached, but he thought that there was a serious chance of his arms being ripped out of their sockets within the hour—if he didn't get help first.

Tobias shoved back against the wall again, this time at an angle; he swung right, then left, like a pendulum in front of the wall, the chains clattering like the ticking of a grandfather clock. Stretching out his legs, he attempted to widen the arc of his swing as he reached for the fallen chains with his legs.

Tobias cringed as his stumps brushed against metal. The local anaesthetic Kenzie had applied was wearing off, leaving his ankles feeling raw and sore as he attempted to catch the chain between his legs.

Tobias missed and tried again, heaving and hurling himself harder in the direction of the metal chains. He managed to catch one around his left ankle, kicking it across the room with a loud crash.

Tobias glanced hopefully at the inert form of the burly man, but the sound had not awoken him. To Tobias's further dismay, the chain was now entirely out of reach.

"Wake up!" Tobias begged of the unconscious man. " _Rennervate!_ "

It was pointless, of course; his wand was still in his pocket, while his sweaty palms were suspended two yards out of reach.

Out of sudden insight or out of sheer desperation, he did not know, but at that moment Tobias let out a loud, hacking cough and propelled a glob of spit directly at the man's forehead.

The burly man's eyes fluttered open.

"Help me," Tobias panted, the pain in his cauterised ankles shooting up the sides of his legs. "Please help…"

Tobias's eyes rolled back in his head. The last thing he saw was the man's gaze before the darkness engulfed him.

* * *

By the time Freda had read through what had seemed like the millionth newspaper clipping, it felt like her eyeballs were threatening to pop out of her head. If they did, then maybe she'd eat them.

 _I'm going mad_ , she thought, though she comforted herself with the fact that the idea had not originated from her own head. There had been a story somewhere between four and five thousand clippings ago that had actually been titled "WOMAN POPS OUT OWN EYEBALLS AND EATS THEM," which had apparently caused quite a stir among the magical community in Suffolk some four years prior.

Freda was on paper duty that evening—which made it sound like paper duty was something that was cycled amongst the members of the Auror Department, Homicide Division, even though it always seemed to Freda that she was the one stuck with it every night.

From a practical standpoint, it made sense. Freda was quick reader with a sharp memory and a decent resistance against headaches that suited her to the role of sifting through documents for relevant data.

This time, Freda was acting upon Howard's suggestion. Now that they had some idea of what the Skull Smasher was looking for in the victim selection process, perhaps they could find some crime in the past that was similar in character to the Smasher slayings.

"After all," Howard had noted, "serial killers tend to take time to develop their craft. They'll often begin their careers with a bit of experimentation, perhaps not quite fitting in with their current M.O.'s, but with similar intents."

"And they would have been sloppier back then," Freda added thoughtfully. "More likely to have slipped up, and easier for us to catch." She had been eager to start.

That conversation now seemed like a year ago. Out of the (probably much more accurately) estimated three hundred or so cases of murder as well as half as many attempted murder, assault, and battery cases that she had read through, she had set aside about one in ten in which the victim had seemed capable of being an intimidating boss at work—which, apparently, was what the first and third Smasher victims had had in common. Freda thought of her own boss, human sledgehammer Carter Fusman, and for an odd, fleeting moment felt a little sympathy for the unknown target of her investigation, who had probably been so badly abused by a superior at work to the point of blowing up into a psychopathic nutjob.

Well, it was Freda's job to lock that nutjob up in Azkaban.

She checked her watch—eighteen minutes past seven. She was voluntarily working overtime and Howard had promised to be back by seven o'clock so that they could talk over anything she'd found. Letting out a groan of annoyance at her colleague's tardiness, she turned to her stack of potential early Smasher victims—smaller than the pile of clippings she'd dismissed, downright puny compared to the heap of clippings she had yet to go through.

There was a cranky old amulet merchant whose son had had enough, charming one of those amulets to force itself down his father's throat until he choked to death. There was a young Quidditch captain whose Beaters purportedly bashed her head in after a particularly gruelling post-match guilt trip. There was a strangled troll wrangler, a drowned apothecary proprietor, a perfume maker who was found Transfigured into one of her own products and sold to an old Finnish lady who was very disturbed to find her scent bottle shattered as bits of dead flesh splattered out. Then there was, of course, the infamous case of Robin Rhodes, the domineering innkeeper from Suffolk who was put under the Imperius Curse and forced to eat her own eyeballs.

 _Gross_ , thought Freda, and then Howard appeared with a _pop_ , his robes particularly disheveled.

"Just…got back from…St. Mungo's," Howard said, distinctly out of breath. "Kenzie and Tobias—they've been attacked."

"Are they okay?" Freda said, bolting up from her seat and instinctively grabbing her cloak.

"Kenzie had a nasty fall, Tobias had his hands and feet amputated, but they put him back together," Howard said. "Healers say there shouldn't be any lasting damage. But it gets better—they found a witness. Big fellow by the name of Rudy Fiscelli, assistant at Ward & Waterford's. Nellie and Tristan are questioning him as we speak."

* * *

"Talk to us, Fiscelli," Tristan said, taking a seat across from the burly man from the gambling shop. "Walk us through what happened."

Rudy Fiscelli glanced up at Tristan. Tristan met his gaze, staring back. Nellie watched them both.

Then Fiscelli shook his head. "Can't," he muttered.

"Mr. Fiscelli, this conversation is strictly confidential," Nellie assured him. "You can talk to us."

Fiscelli turned to Nellie and shot her a solemn look. "It doesn't work like that."

"Then tell us how it works, Mr. Fiscelli," Nellie said. "We're here to help."

Fiscelli pressed his lips together into a thin line, his hands clutched together in consternation. He remained silent.

Tristan was beginning to fidget in his seat in impatience. Nellie gave him a sharp look before turning back to their witness. "Mr. Fiscelli?" she repeated gently.

Fiscelli arose from his chair. He turned around, slipped the robes off his shoulders and began to unbutton his shirt.

Nellie gasped; Tristan leaned back in his chair, his expression fierce. Rudy Fiscelli's back was covered in a criss-crossed mesh of jagged red scars.

As Fiscelli turned back to the Aurors and returned to his seat, Nellie thought back to the scene Tobias had described. "Did your boss do that to you?" Nellie asked.

Fiscelli nodded.

"Sylvester Waterford?" Tristan asked.

Fiscelli shook his head. "Mr. Waterford is an odd character, it is true. But he has always been good to me."

"It was Ward, then?" said Nellie.

Fiscelli nodded fervently but remained quiet. Tristan frowned. "Why can't you talk about it?" he asked. "Did he put some sort of curse on you?"

Fiscelli nodded once again.

"Is that what happened to our colleague?" Nellie said. "The man you brought to the hospital?"

"I tried to help him," Fiscelli said.

"You did help him," Tristan said. "You saved his life. He thanks you for that. We all do."

"I was the one," Fiscelli continued, as if he had not heard Tristan's words, "who put him in danger in the first place."

Fiscelli took a deep breath, his eyes darting around the room. Nellie waited patiently for him to continue.

"I thought it would be all right, now that Ward was dead," Fiscelli finally said. "I thought it was safe, now, to tell someone what he had done to me. The man said he was from the Ministry, like you, so I thought it was safe. But the moment I tried to tell him, the walls…the walls consumed him."

"The chains?" Nellie asked. Fiscelli nodded once more.

"The walls aren't here now," Tristan said, gesturing to the room. "You can talk to us. You're safe here."

Fiscelli swallowed before beginning to speak. "I needed the money. Ward offered me a job, a comfortable salary. I accepted. Then I realised what he really was. But by then it was too late.

"He kept me. He kept me as a slave to his own sadistic pleasures. He showed me what would happen if I told anyone what he was doing to me, so I never did.

"I lived under the shop. I could not leave. Ward made sure of that. But one day, he forgot to lock me up. So I ran, got the hell out of there, ran down Knockturn Alley.

"It was the middle of the night. I didn't know what to do. I thought he might come after me. I went to a pub to clear my head, and then I…met someone. I found myself…telling someone everything. How Ward was treating me. How I'd escaped.

"The person got angry, I think. Said something about how bullies rule the world—superiors bullying their subordinates, bosses bullying their employees, teachers bullying their students. How they needed to be put in their place, crushed like the little ants that they were."

Nellie and Tristan were suddenly sitting up much straighter in their seats.

Fiscelli continued. "Then I must have blacked out or something. The next thing I knew, I woke up, and I was back in the shop, as if nothing had happened. I could barely remember what had happened myself.

"But something had happened. Mr. Waterford told me that Ward had disappeared. Later it turned out he had been killed."

"Who was the person in the pub?" Tristan asked. "Do you remember anything? Gender, hair colour, eye colour, distinguishing features, that sort of thing?"

Fiscelli said, "No. Must have…done something to my memory. I just remember the words like…like they were my own. But I know they weren't. Does that make sense?"

He looked almost desperately at the pair of Aurors, both of whom nodded pensively.

"Were you glad Ward was dead?" Tristan asked quietly.

Fiscelli looked up, his eyes grim. "Of course I was. At first, at least. I thought I was free. Hal Ward deserved the death he died—every bit of it.

"But then I realised I still couldn't leave. The curse had merely grown stronger. Even beyond the grave Ward was still chaining me there. You can kill the harmer. But you cannot kill the pain."

* * *

"So this person he was talking to in the pub—that was actually the Skull Smasher?" Freda asked. Tristan and Nellie had just finished relating the details of their conversation with Rudy Fiscelli.

"It certainly seems that way," Nellie said. "Crushing people like ants—sound familiar? Then that very night Ward gets murdered."

"Where's Fiscelli now?" Howard asked.

"Fusman had him taken to A & C," Tristan replied. "See if they can't get his memories back."

"'A & C'?" Scarlett repeated.

"Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes," Howard explained.

"Ah," Scarlett said, chuckling a little at Howard. "Sounds like a fun place to work."

"It's where my boss was planning on sending you if I hadn't put a word in," Howard said, smiling back.

"Well, that's enough magic for my brain to process for a day," Scarlett said, rising from her seat in the Homicide Division cubicle. "I'm heading out. I'll see you all tomorrow."

A chorus of goodbyes resounded as Scarlett left the office. Freda gave Howard a look.

"What?" Howard said.

"Nothing," Freda said, turning away with a little smirk.

"So, what else have we got?" Nellie asked. Freda pointed at her desk, a newspaper-adorned mess.

"Been looking through these," Freda said, and she explained some of the highlights of her search.

"That'll give us somewhere we can start looking after we get a description out of Fiscelli," Nellie said. "Good work. Now—"

There was a knock on the side of the cubicle. Director of Homicide Robbie Tresillian poked his head in.

"Rob," Nellie said, a little surprised. "What—"

"You'd better come see," said Tresillian, beckoning them to follow.

The four Aurors filed out of the cubicle after Tresillian, following him to Fusman's office. Expecting the worst, Freda was surprised to find that Fusman was not there.

Instead, Marion Wolle, Fusman's secretary, was standing against Fusman's desk, sobbing softly into her hands.

"I thought Fusman sent you to escort Fiscelli to A & C," Tristan said, looking just as surprised as Freda was. Marion nodded mid-sob, letting out an impressively high-pitched whimper.

"It's okay, Marion," Robbie said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Nobody here blames you. Just tell them what happened."

"He was real scared," Marion said, looking up at them out of one eye while she furiously wiped the other with the back of her hand. "Muttering, even. He told me the walls were watching. They were watching him. He said nobody was safe around him. And then he—he just—vanished. Poof." She made a little motion with her hands for emphasis.

"He Disapparated?" Nellie asked. Marion nodded.

"Why would he do that?" Howard asked.

"I don't know!" Marion shrieked, making Howard jump.

"Er—maybe we should talk outside?" Freda suggested. Howard nodded, looking a little embarrassed as they exited the office.

"Why would he do that?" Howard asked again, looking at Nellie and Tristan. "You said he was cooperative."

"Not at first," Nellie pointed out. "It took him a while for him to open up, actually, he was so scared of Ward's curse. Maybe he got cold feet and made a run for it."

"Or maybe he was lying," Tristan added.

"Do you think so?" Freda asked. Tristan shrugged.

"Could've been. Maybe he killed Ward. Maybe he's the Smasher. Maybe he's another copycat. Or maybe not. Point is, if he's gone, we've no way to tell."

"Teachers," Howard said.

"Hmm?" said Nellie.

"You told us Fiscelli told you the Smasher told him something about teachers," Howard said, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms, his brow furrowed in thought.

"Sorry, what does this have to do with Fiscelli disappearing?" Tristan asked.

"No—nothing—I was just thinking about how much Fiscelli knew, what he heard the Smasher say," Howard said. "The Smasher mentioned bosses and employees, that's what we've seen so far, but also teachers and students, right? Maybe one of the next targets is going to be a teacher."

"Like a Hogwarts professor?" Freda asked.

"What other teachers are there?" Howard said.

"But Hogwarts is the safest place in the nation," Freda pointed out. "The Skull Smasher would have to break in there to get to any teacher."

"It's been done before," said Tristan.

"Freda has a point, though," Nellie said. "It'd be incredibly daring of the Smasher to target someone at Hogwarts."

"Didn't a professor die over the summer?" said Howard. "It was in the _Prophet_."

"Professor Jacob Brody, I think it was," Nellie said. "He died in a Fiendfyre accident, though; I don't see how the Smasher would have had anything to do with that."

"Okay, so if the Smasher hasn't killed a teacher already, a teacher might very well be the next victim," Howard said. "Sure, Hogwarts is probably impenetrable, but the professors don't stay in the school all the time. If they're out in, say, Hogsmeade—"

"Saturday's the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year for the students," Tristan said. "Teachers tend to go out then as well. If I were the Smasher, that's when I'd strike. Much easier to blend in when the streets are packed, and casting the Imperius Curse on an unsuspecting teacher would be a piece of cake."

"We need to warn the Hogwarts staff," said Freda.

"We'll contact Mark," said Nellie.

* * *

Professor Peterson loved to make lists.

He was making one now with a Self-Inking Quill and a napkin, lingering at the staff table in the Great Hall after most of his colleagues had filed off—and before most of the students sleeping in on a lazy Saturday morning had shown up for breakfast. On that list were the names of every member of the Hogwarts staff.

Except his own, of course. He had decided it was altogether unlikely that the Skull Smasher would target someone who had been a teacher for barely a week.

Still, Professor Peterson had written down the names of several teachers despite their relative unlikelihood of being the intended Smasher victim, if only for the sake of completeness. He simply struck their names out afterwards.

If his analysis of the Skull Smasher's motives was correct, the victims were those who preyed on the weak, who abused their positions of power to belittle their inferiors. The professors who were not like that could be removed from the list.

Then there was the fact that the Skull Smasher had not struck over summer vacation, as Mark himself had done with Professor Brody, but had instead elected to wait until the school year had begun. Unless the Smasher was patient enough to wait until Christmas vacation, which was doubtful, the intended victim must not have been as easily accessible during the summer as Brody had been. Armed with this information, Mark dropped a few more names from his list.

He crossed out one name because that professor had taken ill two days prior; another because she never went to Hogsmeade when the students did. Now only three names remained.

For a moment, he stared at them. _If I were the Skull Smasher, who would I murder?_

Mark drew a circle around a name. Then he crumpled up the napkin and left the Great Hall.


	5. Teacher's Pest

It did not take long for Professor Peterson to find his target.

"Good morning, Albrecht," he said to Professor Albrecht Mulligan, who taught Divination.

"Mark," Professor Mulligan said in reply, quickly dipping his head in Peterson's direction.

"Mind if I join you?"

"No—please, do." Professor Mulligan looked positively delighted to have company for once.

Mulligan was a stout and stone-faced character who had been teaching at the school for thirteen years. He was extremely unpopular among his students, not in the least because Mulligan had the tendency to make his students sweep up the classroom floor instead of teach. His older sister, however, was a wealthy and particularly influential member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, which many suspected was the reason why Mulligan had never gotten the sack.

Peterson did not blame anyone for wanting to smash Mulligan's skull in.

They made amiable conversation as they headed down Hogsmeade's main street, though Peterson's mind was elsewhere. With a bit of strategic manoeuvring, he was leading the pair of them towards a rather more isolated stretch of the village that Peterson recalled from his own school days. Meanwhile, his eyes wandered from side to side, casually scanning the reflections on the windowpanes they passed for any sign of a suspicious figure—a hunter stalking prey.

 _It takes one to know one_ , Peterson reflected with some amusement.

"Your students adore you," Professor Mulligan suddenly remarked, palpably envious. "And you've only just started. How do you do it?"

It was true. Professor Peterson did have something of a knack for teaching.

"You get to know your students," Peterson mused. "You treat them like adults. You show your passion for the subject and they will learn by example."

"Nonsense," Professor Mulligan said, dismissing Professor Peterson's advice with a wave of his hand.

Professor Peterson simply smiled, concealing any offence he had taken. Instead he satisfied himself by imagining the various ways in which the Skull Smasher could slaughter Albrecht Mulligan.

They turned down a side alley, empty. Peterson turned around, fully aware of what was to come.

" _Imperio!_ "

 _Leave_ , a voice echoed in his head. _Leave and forget that you've seen me. Go buy yourself a drink, then return to the castle._

But Peterson was ready. He also happened to be an extremely stubborn man.

 _No._

Peterson slashed his wand sharply through the air; the Smasher leapt to the side, narrowly dodging the jinx.

Professor Mulligan looked between the two of them, dazed and unhelpfully rooted to the spot. Then the Smasher grabbed Mulligan by the throat and shoved him forcibly against the wall, jabbing a wand against the underside of Mulligan's chin.

" _Imper_ —"

" _Avada Kedavra_."

The Smasher's hold on Mulligan's neck went slack. Professor Mulligan slid to the floor.

Peterson's wand was pointed at the Smasher. The Smasher's wand was pointed at Peterson.

Between them lay Albrecht Mulligan. He was dead.

"Why did you do that?" the Smasher demanded.

Peterson took the time to give the serial killer a good, hard look. Dressed in plain black robes, the Smasher wore a hood obscuring the face, with only the eyes visible.

"Well, I'm sure he would have died either way," Peterson said with a warm smile. "I do apologise for depriving you of the pleasure."

The Smasher let out a furious shriek and sent a curse flying in Peterson's direction; the professor flicked his wand lazily and sent the jet of green light veering off course.

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Peterson said. "I did use to be an Auror, you know."

"I know."

Peterson raised his eyebrows; the Smasher took an uncertain step back.

"We've met, haven't we?" Peterson said, thoughtfully raising his chin.

The Smasher did not reply.

"We have," Peterson said, answering his own question. "Tell you what—you scram, I won't tell a soul."

"No." The Smasher's head shook vigorously. "You're coming with me."

"You're not exactly in a position to negotiate," Peterson pointed out.

"You're the one who killed him," the Smasher growled.

"It's my word against yours," said Peterson.

The Smasher's head tilted to the left, pondering this. "If your old friends come after me, I'll tell them what you did."

"Very well." Peterson kept smiling. "You can trust me."

The Smasher looked hesitant, wand arm twitching. Then, with a swish of robes, the killer bolted out of the alley.

The professor turned around and set to work.

* * *

Howard's eyes swept over the crowd of Hogwarts students. Shouting. Laughing. Running. Crinkling the dried up leaves beneath their feet.

And entirely oblivious to the fallen bodies of their professors.

Professor Albrecht Mulligan was lying in the middle of the alley. He looked as if he was staring up at something truly horrific, forced to watch something he could hardly endure, sentenced to remain frozen in place for all eternity. He looked shocked and afraid.

But Professor Mulligan was not actually any of those things. He was just dead.

Beside him sat Professor Mark Peterson, looking battered and broken with a couple of Healers huddled around him. A large section of stone wall had caved in behind him, and he lay amongst the rubble with his head bleeding and a slab of rock embedded in his left thigh.

Howard watched as Tristan walked over to Mark, who smiled wanly up at them both.

"I'm getting old," said Mark.

"No you're not," said Tristan. "I'm still two years older than you."

"Guess I'm out of practice, then." Mark let out a soft sigh. "Smasher got away."

"Not your fault," Tristan said briskly, though his face was lined with trepidation as he gave Howard a look. It reflected Howard's own concern: if the legendary Mark Peterson could not stop the Skull Smasher, who could? "What can you tell us about the Smasher?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," Mark said, attempting to sit up straight. "Thin, couple inches shorter than me, but that's about it."

"Good at duelling?"

"No, just…caught me by surprise, you see," Mark shook his head, then looked Howard in the eye. "I'm sorry."

"You saved Professor Mulligan from unnecessary pain," Tristan pointed out. "Your presence meant the Smasher couldn't carry out the full ritual and had to make do with just the Killing Curse."

Just the Killing Curse. Somehow Howard did not find that very comforting.

"Well, it's up to you, now," Mark said, who was still looking at Howard. "I trust you'll find the Smasher and put an end to this."

Howard caught the intent look in Mark's eyes and swallowed; he finally got a hint of why Mark might have seemed so formidable as an Auror.

"Hey, Howard?"

Howard turned. Scarlett was beckoning him over.

It had taken Tresillian—at Howard's fervent urging—several hours and cashed in favours to get a special Exemption Charm for Scarlett that would let her into Hogsmeade. Howard had a feeling she was about to prove that their efforts had not been in vain.

"It's beautiful," Scarlett said as he gazed at the castle.

"Normally all that Muggles would see would be a hazardous wreck with a big red 'KEEP OUT' sign at the front," Howard remarked.

"As if that would stop me," Scarlett said with a smirk.

"Safest place on Earth," Howard said with a shrug.

"Is it, though?" Scarlett glanced over her shoulder, just as one of the Healers Disapparated with Mulligan's body.

Howard sighed. "The parents will be in an uproar when they get wind of this," he said. "They'll all be rescinding their children's Hogsmeade permissions."

"Poor kids."

"There'll be widespread panic. All because we couldn't protect their teacher."

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Scarlett said, placing a hand on Howard's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "You did what you could. Not your fault your boss wouldn't let you leave."

The Auror Department had received an anonymous threat to its members by owl a few days prior. Fusman, no doubt still resentful of Nellie for going over his head, had assigned the entire Homicide Division to protective detail for the past week; only this morning had Howard, Tristan, and Freda finally gotten out of guard duty and returned to field work. Howard and Scarlett were certain that the threat had been merely a diversion, but there had been nothing they had been able to do but wait—until a body had turned up.

"Okay, walk me through this," Scarlett said, taking Howard's arm and steering him out of the alley, away from the rubble. "Can anyone just teleport here on cue, or is there some sort of restriction on that?"

"Well, you can't Apparate to or Disapparate from Hogwarts," Howard explained as they walked alongside each other down High Street, "and when Hogsmeade is open to the students, that extends to here as well."

"And can you just, I don't know, walk in and out?" Scarlett said, glaring at a couple of teenagers who were gawking at her particularly Muggle-looking checkered red skirt.

"Out, but not in," Howard said. "They're not too concerned about students running away, that pretty much never happens and they're easy to track down again if they do. But if you're not a student and you're not a villager you wouldn't be able to visit on a weekend when the students are here unless you have some sort of Ministry security clearance, like we do."

Scarlett nodded. "So the only way an intruder could've gotten in," she said, "would be if they were already here, before the weekend."

"Let's check that theory out." Howard pointed at the sign above their heads that read The Three Broomsticks.

They stepped into the inn. Howard smiled a little as he passed an eager bunch of students, evidently third years, sampling butterbeer for the first time; meanwhile Scarlett was staring with interest at a glass of smoking red fluid clutched between the fingers of a wizened old man.

"Howard Kruse, is that you?" Though in her sixties, the barmaid of the Three Broomsticks looked as lively as ever as she set down a tray before squeezing between two chairs and coming over.

"Hello, Madam Rosmerta," Howard said, smiling faintly. "It's, er, been a while."

* * *

 _The performance of the Auror Office has, of late, been of an entirely unacceptable standard. If this is not remedied within a week, one of your members will die. You have been warned._

The letter had arrived by owl on Wednesday. Duplicates had been made and distributed to every Division. Nellie had read and reread her own copy three times before drawing a thin line beneath the word "members" with her wand.

Not "Aurors," no—"members." Whoever had composed the threat was not specifically targeting Aurors, who would, naturally, be able to defend themselves; rather, the target was more likely to be a non-Auror "member" of the Office.

That was why Nellie was at St. Mungo's, sifting through paperwork at a makeshift desk (actually a couple of particularly tall chairs) just outside Tobias's ward. Office administration had insisted that he take some time off to recover from the Ward & Waterford incident; Nellie was supportive of the idea, as that made it much easier for her to watch over him. Kenzie, though she had been discharged on Tuesday, accompanied them both, having converted the empty ward next door into a temporary morgue so that she could remain close by.

Kenzie now took a seat beside Nellie. "Professor Mulligan just came in," she said. "Cause of death was a Killing Curse, just like Mark said. There's not really much else for me to do with him."

Nellie glanced over at her. "Did you know Professor Mulligan?"

"He taught me," Kenzie reflected. "I think he was very smart, but he wasn't very kind. I don't think the students will take it very hard."

Nellie smiled in spite of herself; she could always count on Kenzie for an honest opinion. To that end, Nellie pulled out the copy of the threatening letter that she kept in the inside pocket of her robes.

Both Howard and Scarlett had scorned the note as an empty threat—at best, a prank; at worst, a diversion from the intentions of some potentially dangerous villain. Nellie, however, took any threat to the safety of her colleagues very seriously.

Still, she had to admit that Howard and Scarlett had a point. After all, if the letter was really intended to improve the performance of the Auror Office, then it had been an utter failure—the letter had instead slowed down the productivity of the Office considerably, as its members were too busy guarding and protecting each other to do any proper investigative work.

"What do you think, Kenzie?" Nellie said, turning to her. "Are we wasting our time here?"

Kenzie tilted her head to one side, apparently pondering for a moment before plucking the letter from Nellie's fingers and scanning the writing. "It's not much to go on," Kenzie said.

"See how the writer uses the word 'members'? That's why I thought—"

"The handwriting's very neat," Kenzie noted. "Somebody took the time to write this."

Nellie frowned. She had not really thought much about the handwriting, having been much more focused on the text itself. "Now that you mention it—you're right. So it wasn't just a prank."

"Some people spend a lot of time on very elaborate pranks," Kenzie said. "I just mean that whoever wrote this letter did so very deliberately. They must have had a good reason."

* * *

"I haven't seen you since you left school!" said Rosmerta, beaming at Howard before raising her eyebrows at Scarlett. "And who might this lovely young lady be?"

"I'm Scarlett," she said, beaming as she offered her hand; Rosmerta shook it firmly. "Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"That's right, I did hear, you're an Auror now, aren't you?" Rosmerta said, looking at Howard in awe before turning to Scarlett. "I always knew he'd make something of himself. Can I get you two some refreshments?"

"I'm good," Howard said, but Scarlett raised her hand.

"I'll have whatever he's having," she said, pointing to the man with the smoking red drink.

Madam Rosmerta called back to a young woman behind the counter, "A glass of Ogden's!" Howard gave Scarlett a sidelong glance, slightly amused. "So what did you want to ask me?" asked Rosmerta.

"Mind if we go over here?" Howard said once Scarlett had received her drink; he directed them over to a part of the inn where there was less of a chance that they would be overheard.

"What is it?" Rosmerta asked as Howard's expression turned grim. "Has something happened?"

"Professor Mulligan's been murdered," Howard said, and Rosmerta gasped. "We suspect the killer might have come into Hogsmeade some time before this morning and waited overnight to come out. Have you had any lodgers here recently who left some time this morning?"

"Well, there was a young man, now that you mention it," said Madam Rosmerta, who then frowned. "I mean, I'm sure he was a harmless fellow. Do you think…?"

"What was his name?" Howard asked, as Scarlett sipped at her glass of firewhisky and glanced off into the distance.

"Cal something, I think? Let me go and check." Madam Rosmerta marched off, slipping behind the bar and into a back room.

Scarlett set her glass down. "Gotta use the ladies' room," she muttered before heading off as well, leaving Howard alone with his thoughts in the corner of the inn.

* * *

"Messings?"

Freda glanced up. Tresillian stood by her cubicle, holding a file in his hands. "Sir?"

Tresillian glanced around. "Nobody's back yet?"

"They're all still at Hogsmeade," Freda said, munching on a bar of a chocolate. "What's up?"

"It's Fiscelli," said Tresillian.

"Did they find him?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking," Tresillian said with a sigh. "He's dead."

"What? When?"

"Around three in the morning last Tuesday."

"But he Disapparated Monday night," Freda said, picking thoughtfully at her chocolate bar. "So he's been dead this whole time? Why didn't anyone find him till now?"

Tresillian offered her his arm. "Come on, I'll show you."

* * *

Scarlett ran straight into the side of a blonde girl's stool.

The girl let out a loud yelp, dropping her tankard of butterbeer into her lap and spilling it all over the front of her robes.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Scarlett exclaimed, dipping her hand into the girl's bag. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," the girl said, scowling as she batted Scarlett's hand aside.

"Here, let me help—"

"No, I don't need—"

"I can clean that for you, Brooke," said one of the girl's friends, who extracted her wand.

"No—no, Raina, I can handle it—"

"Are you sure? Maybe—"

"Yes, yes of course—where's my wand—"

"Brooke—"

Scarlett took a tactful step back, blending in with a queue of students at the bar. Brooke pushed back her stool, leaping up and hurrying over to the ladies' room at the back of the inn. Scarlett dropped Brooke's wand on the floor and followed.

Scarlett slipped inside the ladies' room and locked the door behind her, standing firmly against the restroom door to keep anyone else from coming inside.

"Brooke?"

Brooke spun around, the tap of the sink still running. "What the fuck? Are you stalking me or something?"

Scarlett considered this for a moment, then shrugged as she pulled out her gun. "I guess you could put it like that."

* * *

Freda had not had the chance to meet Rudy Fiscelli personally, but she had seen a couple of photographs of him after his disappearance and figured she would recognise him on sight by his distinctive features—his wide-set eyes, his puffy nose, and his round, jutting chin. As she stared down at what she had been told was Fiscelli's body, however, she realised that there was a small problem: she could not see this man's face, for the simple reason that he had been stuffed face-first into a very large wastebasket that was sitting beside a sofa in somebody's living room.

"It's definitely him," Tresillian said, as Freda had inquired upon that point. "They took him out and checked, but I instructed them to put him back to preserve the scene, so that we could see how he was found."

There were many types of wastebaskets in the wizarding world. Some, like those in the Auror Office, Vanished their contents immediately; others stored their garbage for a week or so before emptying themselves periodically, in case anyone had thrown away something they hadn't meant to. Some people favoured wastebaskets that compressed their garbage into neat cubes; others bought bins carrying Undetectable Extension Charms, along with some Odour-Masking Charms for good measure. This particular wastebasket, however, appeared to enlarge itself as around its contents, as it had expanded to the height of Freda's chin with the presence of a body inside of it.

"And Mr. Feldman," Freda said, referring to the plump old man who owned both the wastebasket and the house they were in, "has no idea where the body came from?"

"None at all," said Tresillian. "He claims he's never met Fiscelli before. According to him, he woke up this morning, came down from his bedroom upstairs, and found Fiscelli just like this. Called Magical Law Enforcement Patrol right away. Think he's telling the truth?"

"He seemed pretty innocently bewildered to me," said Freda. "I think he just got caught up in this mess. Besides, why would you kill someone and then stuff the victim into your own wastebasket?"

"You'd be surprised by the idiocy of some criminal minds," Tresillian said with a grim smile. "I agree with you on this point, however. But that raises another question—why would you kill someone and then stuff the victim into some random wastebasket in somebody else's house?"

"It's weird, isn't it?" Freda frowned as she gazed into the bin once more, noting the scraps of parchment, the used tissues, some empty food wrappers, a bit of yellow slime, a broken quill, and various other junk that were all scattered atop Fiscelli's back. "And then why is there all this rubbish on _top_ of the body? It's definitely not to hide the body, a child could find it like this. Did the killer just want to sandwich him in between piles of waste or something? But why?"

"Why, indeed? Hmm. Maybe we could at least find out how many days' worth of rubbish this is?" Tresillian glanced over his shoulder and beckoned for Mr. Feldman, who was still wearing his pyjamas and slippers, to come over. Then he waved his wand over the top of the wastebasket, causing everything on top of Fiscelli's body to float up into the air. "Do you recognise all of this?" he asked Mr. Feldman.

The old man nodded and said, "It's all the rubbish I've thrown away in the last couple of days."

"Like this?" Tresillian said with some amusement as he nudged forward a purple pamphlet with a gold Ministry of Magic "M" stamped over its cover, though the "M" was split down the middle, as the front seal had been broken off. Freda peered at it—the pamphlet contained a public service announcement warning against riding broomsticks under the influence of alcohol.

Mr. Feldman crossed his arms. "You think I open all that shit the Ministry sends? No, I just chuck it in the bin where it belongs."

"No need to get testy, Mr. Feldman," Tresillian said smoothly with a calm smile. "We'll be out of your hair as soon as you answer a couple more questions for us. Do you remember when you received this pamphlet?"

"Three, four, five days ago?" said Mr. Feldman, as his arms wrapped ever more tightly around himself. Freda would have preferred a rather more specific answer; she made a mental note to check with someone at the Department of Magical Transportation about what the exact date had been.

As Tresillian moved on to more routine questions, Freda glanced back at the large wastebasket and let out a small, wistful sigh. With Fiscelli dead, that was two likely Smasher victims they had been aware of and yet had failed to save since Monday, and all because of that threatening letter. It was almost as if the Smasher was taking advantage of this threat, striking when the Aurors would be most distracted.

Or maybe—more likely—it was just a coincidence.

Right?

* * *

 _Cal Salis_ —that was the name Madam Rosmerta had provided Howard with. Not that it meant much; the lodger could easily have provided Rosmerta with a fake name. Next on his to-do list was to check at the Hog's Head.

But first, he had to find Scarlett, who for some reason still hadn't emerged from the toilet. What was in that firewhisky?

Howard wandered over to the lavatories in the back, wondering what was taking her so long. He watched aimlessly as a girl went up to the women's room, push against the door, and let out a disgruntled noise as she discovered it was apparently locked.

Howard frowned. As far as he could remember, the toilets at the Three Broomsticks had stalls—they were not intended for single occupants. Why would the door be locked if Scarlett was still inside?

Gathering up his wits, Howard went up to the women's room and knocked, calling out, "Scarlett, you in there?"

For a few long seconds, there was silence. Then, suddenly, the door was pulled open a couple of inches and someone yanked Howard inside by the arm.

It took a moment for Howard to fully register the scene before him. Scarlett stood beside him; though her left hand was still grasping his arm, her right hand had a firm grip on her pistol, which was pointed directly at a blonde girl huddled in the corner by the sink. She looked like she was around seventeen or eighteen.

"Help me!" the girl screeched as soon as she saw Howard. "Oh god, help me, _please_ —"

"Shut up!" Scarlett growled as she stared down at the girl.

"W-what are you doing?" Howard said, looking from Scarlett to the girl in shock.

"She's gonna kill me!" cried the blonde. "SHE'S GONNA KILL ME!"

"SHUT IT!" Scarlett bit her lip; her finger trembled on the trigger.

"What are you _doing?_ " cried the blonde. "DO SOMETHING!"

"Scarlett," Howard said, taking a deep breath. " _What_ is going _on_ —?"

"HELP ME!"

"I'll _explain_ ," said Scarlett, "as soon as—"

"Oh, god help me! Don't let her kill me!"

"—this bitch—"

"She'll kill me, oh god, oh my god, _do something_ —"

"—shuts—"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY AREN'T YOU—?"

"UP!"

"Okay, everyone just calm down, here," Howard said, laying his hand gingerly on Scarlett's shoulder. "Scarlett, you're overreacting, just—"

"I'm _fine_ ," Scarlett hissed, before jutting her chin out at the girl. " _She_ isn't. I'll explain just as soon as—"

"I did NOTHING!"

"She's a criminal, Howard, I've been looking for her for a while now—"

" _She's lying!_ "

"Howard," Scarlett said, her eyes flitting over to him for a split second before locking back on the girl. "Do you trust me?"

Howard pressed his lips together. He glanced at the whimpering, sobbing girl crouched in the corner of the women's room; then he glanced at the cold, hard face that was staring her down.

Then he glanced at the door, because he thought he'd heard someone knocking.

"HEEEELP!" The girl screamed; apparently she had heard the knocking, too. "HEEE—"

" _Silencio_."

The girl fell quiet. Howard kept his wand pointed at her as he turned to Scarlett. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Brooke Cortona," Scarlett said. "Last March, around Easter, she tortured and brutally maimed a sixteen-year-old girl by the name of Sally Tross, who'd had the misfortune of befriending Brooke's boyfriend. The police—well, my police—wouldn't believe Sally when she told them that Brooke just pointed at her with a stick, so her mother came to me. I found her just now, sitting right here in the inn."

Howard frowned. "Are you sure it's her?"

"Positive. I've seen her picture, I recognised her right away."

"So—this was in March? Why didn't _we_ hear about this?"

"Don't ask me, I dunno why you lot weren't doing your jobs," Scarlett retorted. "I just know I have to clean up the messes afterwards."

Howard looked over at the girl again, who was now sobbing silently as she gazed up at them both. "Well, you better be right about this," Howard muttered. "Brooke Cortona, you're under arrest, for the—"

The door blasted open. Howard flattened himself against the wall, letting the door's wooden shambles fly by as a figure emerged in the smoke.

"What the hell is going on here?" said Tristan Griffith as he stepped into the women's room, scowling.

* * *

"What did I _say_?" Deputy Head Carter Fusman howled as he marched up and down his office, berating the four Aurors standing before him. "What did I _say_ about letting a Muggle prance about the premises? I warned you, I warned you it would be nothing but trouble, and look what happened! Just wait till the Prophet gets wind of this…as if a murdered Hogwarts professor wasn't enough, we've got a Muggle in Hogsmeade threatening students and waving a gun around!"

"She wasn't 'waving it around,' she was trying to make an arrest," Howard wanted to say, but didn't. Instead he stared pointedly at the ground, sweat glistening on his brow, his face flushed with shame.

"I should sack the lot of you!" Fusman shouted, swiping his hand out at the four of them and accidentally whacking Marion, who stood demurely beside him, in the shoulder.

"But you can't," said Tresillian, who sat on a chair against the wall. "We're in the middle of a high-profile serial killer case, you can't sack our entire division."

"Perhaps not at this moment," Fusman said, fuming. "But you can sleep happy knowing that you'll all be facing proper disciplinary action in due course. And no Muggle shall set foot in this office ever again! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," said Tristan.

"Thank you, sir," said Nellie.

"Of course, sir," said Freda.

"Sir, I—"

"Except you, Howard," Fusman said, cutting him off. "You're suspended indefinitely due to exceedingly poor judgement. Now get out of my sight."

"I—"

"Out!" Fusman jabbed his finger at the door.

Howard opened his mouth in protest, as did Nellie and Freda. All three of them, however, seemed to think better of it; instead, swallowing his pride, Howard trudged out of the room in defeat.

After the door had swung shut behind Howard, Fusman turned to the other three Aurors, glowering at them. "Where's the Muggle?"

"She has a name," Freda muttered.

"She's gone," said Tristan. "Done a bunk."

"You're all disgraceful," said Fusman. "How in the name of Merlin could you let a _Muggle_ elude you?"

"Her name," said Freda, who was growing steadily impatient, "is Scarlett Brewster. And she's very—"

"I'm not here to listen to your silly little excuses," said Fusman. "Go and find her!"

"With all due respect, sir, we have higher priorities at the moment," Nellie said. "We may have found a lead on the Smasher case. And also, this Cortona girl—"

"—must be released at once and given a full apology!" Fusman said. "You have shown me zero evidence of any wrongdoing on her part! We'll be lucky if she doesn't file a report against the Auror Office—"

"I'll take care of her," Tresillian said, rising from his seat. "Please let my team get back to work, Carter. The Smasher needs to be stopped."

"Fine," Fusman said, taking a seat back at his desk and sipping on the cup of tea that Marion had brought him. "Go and do your jobs."

* * *

Nellie, Tristan, and Freda stood around their adjacent cubicles in various states of dejection. Freda was pacing about restlessly; Tristan was gripping the edge of his desk so hard that his knuckles were white. Nellie, meanwhile, leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, her lips fluttering as she took deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. None of them seemed to have the heart to sit down.

"I screwed up," Tristan finally said. "I should never have let Howard go off alone with Scarlett."

"It's not your fault," Nellie said immediately. "Howard should have known better, you needn't have to babysit him."

"But—Scarlett wouldn't have just threatened a random student, you know that," Freda said. "She must have had a reason for it, she must have really thought the girl had attacked someone."

"I've contacted Halimeda Wiske in Violent Crimes and tipped them off about Brooke Cortona, they'll follow up on her," Nellie said. "But for now, we need to focus. Tristan, what did you find in Hogsmeade?"

"Nobody was staying at the Hog's Head," said Tristan, "but there was one lodger at the Three Broomsticks that Howard found—someone who called himself Cal Salis. I've checked, though, and there is no wizard alive named Cal Salis in Britain."

"Did we get a description of him, at least?" Nellie asked.

"Short man, late twenties or early thirties, broad-shouldered, mop of brown hair, freckles, hunched over a bit when he walked," Tristan replied. "I had a sketch of him made. Haven't identified him yet, though."

"All right, we'll keep looking. Freda, any leads with the Fiscelli murder?"

"There's something about the fact that he was found dumped in a wastebasket that I can't seem to get my head around," Freda said as she continued to pace about the room. "It's just such an odd place for a killer to decide to put a body."

"You think maybe he ended up there inadvertently?" Nellie asked.

"Yeah—something like that. I don't think the killer meant for him to end up there, he just sort of—appeared."

"How does one end up stuffed in a wastebasket _inadvertently?_ " Tristan asked, incredulous. "I think you'd notice if you were tossing a dead body in the bin."

"Unless you didn't know it was a dead body," Nellie said, in sudden realisation. "Unless you thought it was just—rubbish."

It dawned on Freda, as well. "Are you saying—"

"He was Transfigured," Nellie said with a nod. "His body was Transfigured into a piece of rubbish and thrown out. Then the spell wore off this morning, and he returned to his usual form."

" _That's_ why there was waste scattered on top of him, too!" Freda exclaimed; her pacing came to a sudden halt. "By then the spell _hadn't_ worn off yet, so Mr. Feldman just kept dumping waste in. He wouldn't have suspected a thing."

"But how did the Transfigured body get into his house in the first place?" asked Tristan.

"Wait—hang on," Freda said, pressing her fingertips to her temples. "This all sounds awfully familiar. I was looking at a clipping the other day—let me see—" She hurried over to her desk and dug amongst the newspaper fragments. "Here it is," she said, extracting a yellowing sheet from the pile. "An old Finnish lady bought a bottle of perfume, only for it to shatter when its contents reverted back to the crushed body parts it once was, before it had been Transfigured. Same idea—you kill someone, and you dispose of the body by Transfiguring it into something mundane and passing it along to some unsuspecting person. By the time the spell wears off, the body's already far away from the original scene of the crime, making it much harder to trace the murder back to the killer."

"Might that be a bit of a stretch, though?" Nellie said. "I mean, it's not _that_ original of an idea to Transfigure your victim's body into something else to hide it, is it?"

"The timing checks out," Tristan said, leaning over to read the clipping. "In this case the spell wore off and the perfume bottle broke four days after the victim's disappearance. In our case, Fiscelli died early Tuesday morning, and his body was discovered this morning. Tuesday would've been four days ago exactly. That means the ability of the spellcaster is at least consistent between these two murders."

"And this case fits other parts of the Smasher's M.O., as well," Freda said. "The victim was crushed to a pulp—and, quite literally, Transfigured into liquid. Her name was Betty Shatler, owner of Betty's Bountiful Boutique, and by all accounts she was an insufferable boss. And—ha, yes, look at that!" Freda said, jabbing her finger at a line on the newspaper clipping. "That can't be a coincidence! Look at the name of Shatler's personal assistant!"

"'Caleb Salisbury,'" Tristan read. "Blimey, that—that's Cal Salis. Son of a bitch just truncated his names."

"I think," Nellie said, beaming at her colleagues, "we've just found our kill—"

"AAAAAAAAAEEEEEEE!"

The scream had emitted from the direction they had come from just a few minutes before. Tristan, Freda, and Nellie rushed back to Fusman's office, where a small crowd had gathered upon hearing the scream.

Once more, Tristan found himself blasting a door open; once more he found an unwelcome sight behind it. Carter Fusman was sitting at his desk where they'd left him, but hardly _as_ they'd left him—he was slumped over and inert in his seat. Meanwhile Marion stood to his left with her back to him and her arms outstretched, her mouth widened in a shriek as she attempted to fend off the third figure in the room.

Dressed in plain black robes and a hood, the figure grabbed ahold of Marion's wrist with one hand and Fusman's shoulder with the other, turning on the spot in an apparent attempt to Disapparate.

Tristan leapt forward and cast a curse in the figure's direction; the figure deflected it with a flick of a wand. In repelling Tristan's attack, however, the figure had neglected to notice the jinx that Nellie had sent in his direction.

A gust of wind blew out of Nellie's wand and shoved the figure's hood back off of his head. There stood a short man, in his late twenties or early thirties, with a mop of brown hair and a face dotted with freckles. He hunched over as he took a step back, then turned one broad shoulder forward and the other back as he turned on the spot, and Caleb Salisbury, alias Cal Salis, Disapparated with two members of the Auror Office in tow.


End file.
